Trying Something New

For years, I've been thinking I should make greeting cards. I have scrapbook supplies; I have stamping supplies; I have art supplies; I have youtube. But, alas, I made no cards.

Today, that changed. I decided that if I was going to create art every day, I really should do something with it. Turning my art into cards seems like the perfect solution.  So, today, I made art, and I made a card. Here it is:

My inspiration was a project from:
Unfortunately, after collecting a bunch of watercolor books, I realized, after an hour of searching, that I have no transparent watercolors!  All I have at home are opaque gouache paints.  Amazing. So, I for this project I used acrylic, thinned with water and floating medium to try and make it at least look like watercolor.  Regardless, I like it and hope you do, too.

Watercolor Sunflower ATC, revisited

Since I didn't like my watercolor sunflower and I have been liking the results of mixing Zentangle and watercolor, I thought I'd see what would happen if I did some tangling over the ATC from a few days ago.

Before: a sloppy watercolor sunflower

After: I'm still not digging it.
But I do like the background.
The inner critic is back. <sigh>

Working Backwards

Yesterday, I started by tangling and then adding watercolor. Today, I did the opposite.  I put down a little wet-on-wet.

But, I thought it needed more texture, so I put down another layer of watercolor. I've decided I really like putting down colors and just watching them blend and seeing what happens. It is very freeing.

Then I tried to find tangles the emphasized the paint designs. It was hard to pick just the right tangles and I'm not sure I completely succeeded.

Here is the final result.

I think it might need some more color on the tangles.  What do you think?  Is it done? Please comment and let me know.

No Judgement Day

Today, I refused to listen to my inner critic. I wanted to do something fun and free-flowing and colorful.  Lately, every time I sit down to do art, I hear this little voice in my head telling me how bad it is. She can be very persuasive and it sucks the joy out of painting. So, today, I declared it a "no criticism day." Every time that voice started, I just told her to shut it.

It worked.  I was able to have a blast on this piece and I really like the results.

My favorite part. I think it looks like a mermaid tail in a beautiful blue sea.

Phiclops, a very fun new tangle. After painting and shading this, I used a white Gelly Roll pen and then covered the whole thing in Glaze.  

The whole piece: 5x8
watercolor, pencil, Sakura micron, Sakura Glaze pen,
white Sakura Gelly Roll pen

Sunflower Take 2

I thought it would be fun to see if I could recreate the Sunflower ATC from a few days ago in watercolor.  I was mistaken.  I don't know if it is because

• I spent 1/10 of the time on the watercolor
• I need more practice in watercolor
• I just prefer more detailed work

In any case, here is the watercolor version.  Not my favorite, but I'm still glad I made time to paint today.

Lavender's Blue Dilly Dilly

Another day, another quick sketch. Maybe over the weekend, I will have time to spend more than 15 minutes on a sketch. In any case, it feels good just to have a paintbrush in my hand. Left, today's inspiration, from the same catalog as yesterday. (Not much blooming here right now.) And the result on the right. If the year keeps going as it is starting, I will be getting a lot of practice with quick sketches.

Watercolor Rose

I knew when I started this project that there would be days when I was busy and didn't feel like creating. I just didn't think it would happen on DAY 2! I spent all day using up my creative juices working on my newsletter for TangledUpInArt. Ugh. So, at 10:30, I was ready to go to bed and Alexa reminded me that "we needed to blog." (It is good to have a partner to help you keep your resolutions.)

So, I grabbed a garden catalog from the recycling and found this for inspiration. Since I didn't have a lot of time, I thought it would be fun to do a combination watercolor pencil with a wet-on-wet stylistic rose.

John F. Kennedy Rose - I'd love to have a week or so to paint this beauty.

I used 3 watercolor pencils to start my sketch: pink, magenta, and golden yellow

Then I just got my brush and slopped water over everything and let it run.

I used my hot pink and yellow pan colors to brighten it up and a bit of salt to try and mimic the "raindrops on roses."

After adding a watery leafy background and scratching in a few branches, I'm calling it done.

The hardest problem for me painting to late at night is making sure I dip my paintbrush in my water and not my tea!