New Paints and Watercolor Cityscape

After my last attempts at abstract watercolor, I decided to try something different. It has been a while since I watched CeeCee painting one of her watercolor cityscapes. With what I  remembered, I decided to try my own simplified version of a cityscape with my new Koi water color set.

Supplies:

• Koi Water Colors Pocket Field Sketch Box
• 4 1/2″ x 6″ Artist Loft Watercolor paper 140 lb/ 300 g/m
• blue painters tape
• hardboard

Let me tell you. I don’t know if changing from my Prang watercolor set to the Koi water color set made a difference or if trying out a new set just put me in a different frame of mind. All I know is this. I felt completely different while working on this simple painting than I have in any other watercolor painting I have done. Trying to create a watercolor painting on my own without following any instructions always ended up with me feeling frustrated. Not this time. But before I get into that let me go back a bit.

A couple weeks ago I started looking into upgrading to better watercolor paint. Because I am on a tight budget, I wanted the most economical set at least at the next level up in quality. I wasn’t sure if I wanted pans or tubes, so I started comparing prices. I checked locally, as well as, online and after a lot of research I finally settled on the Koi water color pocket field sketch box. I felt it gave me the best options for my money.  I also heard Lindsay Weirich say good things about Koi so I felt it would be a good investment. She wasn’t wrong.

I did a quick swatch of my colors in the set so I could identify which colors I wanted to use in my painting. It is hard to tell for sure what the colors are by just looking at the paint in the pans, so creating a swatch was beneficial.

I didn’t mix any paint. I used the paint just as it came from the pans using the water brush that came with the set. I didn’t really mix any of the paint on my paper either except where it accidentally touched another color while it was still wet, which happened on one or two of the trees. I did add a second color of green to the trees and to the bushes and grass.

First, I want to say how easy it was to pick up the paint. All I did was let a drop of water drip onto the paint in the pan and sometimes I wouldn’t wait at all before dipping my brush into the paint. I didn’t have to wait for the paint to soak up the water in order for me to lift any paint onto the brush.

Second, I barely had to touch the paint in order to get enough to paint with, not even for the buildings. I knew Lindsay said these paints would go a long way but it was hard to reconcile that in my mind when I saw how tiny the pans are. After trying them just this one time, I know what she said is true. I will, however, have to recondition my mind to not think that I’m wasting paint when I clean my water brush on a paper towel when I want to change colors. Although I bought the paint set on Amazon when it was on sale, it was still more than I have ever paid for a set of water color paint. From what I have experienced so far, I think the set is worth the money I paid for it.

I will admit that switching from a cheap watercolor set to one that cost more and is higher quality paint created a different mindset for me when I sat down to paint. Because I felt the paint was more precious, I was very careful. I started out by picking up a small amount of paint, as small as I could to see what the results would be and was astonished to discover how fantastic the tiniest amount of paint spread across my paper.

I’ve used water brushes before so that wasn’t new to me. It worked very well for me on the watercolor paper, with picking up the paint, and also for dripping a small drop of water into the paint in the pan to get it wet. I learned quickly to wipe the excess water off the brush before picking up the paint or I would have a puddle of water on my paper. However, from watching CeeCee and Lindsay, I learned how to dab up the excess water off the paper with the brush and the brush did this rather well too.

This really is my first landscape watercolor painting. It is also the first watercolor painting where I left a lot of paper untouched. In all my other paintings when using the cheaper watercolors, I felt I needed to cover the whole surface, but not this time. Before I started to paint, I did tape my paper down using blue painter’s tape because I wasn’t sure how wet I would end up making the paper. In the end, I probably didn’t need to tape it down but I’m glad I did because I love the crisp white edge around the painting.

I knew a better quality of paint would be a bit different to paint with. I just didn’t know how it would also bring my artist’s mind into a different level as well. Is it because I know the paint is better quality or is it because the artist in me responds to how differently the paint reacts? Probably a bit of both, but I suspect more of the latter. If it is the latter, then I don’t want to think about what it might mean for those who cannot afford the higher quality supplies. If I can’t continue to buy Koi or watercolors of similar quality, will increasing my skill as a painter suffer? I hope not.

I do know this. It will be difficult to go back to Prang, at least for a while. I want to practice more with Koi to see what I can do. Then maybe I’ll go back to Prang to see if what I learned with the Koi set alters the way I use my Prang set.

 

Experimenting, seeking, and blessings…

I have been playing around with watercolor pencils and my watercolor paints. I have been watching some youtube videos to get some ideas for what I can do artistically to support my bible studies and my spiritual journey.

First, I learned how to highlight text in my bible and then use the same highlighter color to mark my notes I make in the border of my journaling bible, so it is easy to find my notes which refer to the text. This is great because it not only makes it easy to reference the scripture with my notes, it also adds some marvelous color to my bible.

I also have a notebook where I write down notes regarding the chapter I read in my daily bible study. But the notebook is rather plain and uninspiring since it is written using black ink and in a cheap composition notebook. I decided to start making changes:

1. The first thing I changed was the format so what I read daily was grouped together and each day was separated by a date.
2. The next thing I did was use a different color of ink each day. I have about 6 different colored gel pens so I started using them to write my notes changing to a different color the next day. This created an obvious division between each day’s studies.
3. The third thing I did was see if I could use watercolor pencils on the paper and a waterbrush to activate them. This is where I started to run into issues. The watercolor pencils didn’t move hardly at all on the untreated paper of the composition notebook. This also caused the paper to wrinkle.
4. The next step, I tried some watercolor paint but that also didn’t move very much. Below is a picture of the watercolor paint layered over the watercolor pencils and you can see how splotchy it appears. I wasn’t crazy about it at all, although when I started writing my notes over it, I kind of liked it. This page has an interesting crinkling sound to it and it is wrinkly, an effect from becoming wet which I sometimes like and sometimes don’t.
5. The next thing I did was try treating a page front and back with clear gesso and applying watercolor pencils to it and activating it again with a waterbrush. This worked better but still had issues with getting it to blend out the way I wanted it, so I put a wash of watercolor paint over it. This is still blotchy but better than the one above and the page doesn’t wrinkle or crinkle like the untreated page above. I actually love the texture of the page from the clear gesso I’m using. The gesso isn’t gritty and it gives the page what my touch and mind can only interpret as an almost leather type feel to it on both the surface and when bending and turning the page. It feels sturdier and not at all like paper in how it bends.
6. On the other side of the treated page, I used just watercolor wash of paint over the clear gesso. This is by far my favorite and is what I plan on doing going forward in my bible study notebook.

I expect my next change will be to decorate the cover of my notebook, after watching a video today on youtube of someone covering their composition notebook, it made me want to do something similar.

The thing I am most pleased about is finding a way to work with a cheap composition notebook. I have seen other people on youtube and in some art courses I’ve taken who use composition notebooks for their art journals, junk journals, bullet journals and so forth but when I tried to use one in the way they did, it just didn’t appeal to me. Most of them didn’t treat their pages, some of them glued pages together to make them sturdier.

As you read above, I don’t generally like the page when it gets all crinkly after it dries, though the sound is pleasing the results of the medium on the untreated page isn’t.  As I learned in my creative journaling bible and now in this notebook, treating the page with clear gesso is what I like best because it gives me a broader range of options for anything I might want to do on the page. Consequently, I’m going through clear gesso quite quickly, luckily the clear gesso I can get locally isn’t expensive and I like it.

I only have a couple pages done with watercolor in my journal, even so, when I flip back through my journal, I definitely like the ones with color more. I am hoping to add some doodles or some variations in my writing to help make my notes more visual so I might be able to have instant recall on what was in the text I was studying. Right now my notes just run together. I am intrigued by those who are able to create doodles in their notes as they go and have them make so much sense. I have never been a doodler, so trying to come up with simple images to draw that would emphasize what I’m learning doesn’t come easily or naturally to me. I think I’m more of a word person, so creating changes in my writing may be what I need to do.

What I’m learning is experimenting, trying different things, is helping me to find what works for me. This is being driven home even more so in my play with watercolor paint. These next two images are from practicing on two pieces of 4 1/2″ x 5″ watercolor paper. I have watched a number of artists on youtube paint with watercolor and each time I try to do something without following a lesson or what they are doing and just try to do something on my own, it ends up something like these. Then I don’t know what to do with them.

The first one looks like an out of focus picture of flowers that have no connection with the earth or each other.

I have no idea where I was headed with this one, I just started putting paint down where I felt like placing it and letting it run. I think when I was letting the paint run we had a bit of thunder and lightening happening outside which doesn’t occur very often.

Basically, I was just playing. I think I should try a challenge of doing one of these small watercolor practice squares a day for 30 days and see what happens. I’m just feeling a bit overwhelmed with other things I feel I should be doing and not progressing as fast as I think I should be so to add something like a challenge right now might be a bit too much.

It is hard to justify playing with my art when I feel I should be focusing on things to improve our financial situation. I have to keep myself open to what God wants me to do. After winning a spot in “Paint Your Heart and Soul 2019” and another spot in “Life Book 2019”, I have to believe that God wants me to continue pursuing my art and including it as often as I can in my day-to-day activities.

I started a prayer journal and I’m using my artistic skills to bring prayer to life for me. That may sound strange so below is an image of a page in my prayer journal. I don’t want to confuse anyone and have them think the artwork or text is mine. I got both from Pinterest.  If you want to look up the text graphic you can find it here. If you want to look up the image you can find it here.  The footnote to the image states, “Praying is a painting by Dorina Costras which was uploaded on April 11th, 2017.” I had the background painted long before I found the text or image so to find an image which spoke to me so deeply and blended so well with my background and also the text is wonderful. I would love to have this image on canvas or print for my wall but in my present circumstances I can’t afford it so I opted for a small printout to put in my prayer journal.

The image and the words together bring prayer to life for me. It has been difficult to have faith that my prayers will be answered. Throughout my life, I have prayed more times than I can count where I felt like no one was listening and nothing came of my prayers. The more I read my bible, the more I realize there was a very important element missing in my life when I accepted Jesus into my heart as my Lord and Savior. Learning was disjointed, had no cohesion, there was no direction given to me as a new child of God. Would things have been different if there had been a more structured teaching to help someone like me? I can’t answer that. I would like to think so but God does things a certain way for a good reason. Maybe after being saved, I needed to become lost and lose almost everything so I would truly seek him for the right reasons. Seeking God for one’s own personal gain is wrong. I originally sought him and accepted him because I feared for my life that I might die and go to hell. I didn’t seek him to glorify him or out of fear of him. In April, when I decided to start reading the bible, I did so because I wanted to get to know God and who he really is. Not the God I was taught about as a child because I felt what I was being taught was a bastardized version of him and not the real HIM.

It is hard to sit back and study the bible at the pace I am studying it. I want to fly through it learning all I can as fast as I can.  Even though I’m moving through it chapter by chapter instead of verse by verse which is what is recommended by Anne Graham Lotz in her 3-Question Bible Study method, I feel like I’m learning at a snail’s pace.

I came across Anne’s method a couple weeks ago when I was searching different ways of studying the bible. I also discovered she has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and has just started chemo treatments. From what she writes it sounds like her diagnosis is more severe than mine and her treatments will last a lot longer. I pray for her every day for God to give her strength and healing. I used to listen to her father Billy Graham many years ago but had no idea she had her own ministry. From what little I have read and listened to so far, she may become a rather important source of inspiration for me.

I am slowly finding my way in this life, this new life which is developing out of the ashes of my old life. I often feel as though I am no longer standing on solid ground, so unstable it might dissolve completely leaving nothing to stand on, or that I’m standing on the edge of a cliff where the slightest breeze could push me over the edge. God is the only one who is keeping me grounded. He is answering my prayers and giving me hope. When I am left to my own devices, and I try to rely on just myself, everything just feels like it is falling apart and there is no hope left in me.

I am learning to lean on God, and he is showing me in amazing ways that he is listening and answering my prayers in his own way and in his own time. It is hard to be patient. It is hard to change from my old ways. It is hard not to let doubt bubble up and overwhelm me. But each time I witness God’s helping hand in my life, my faith grows a bit more, a bit stronger and becomes a bit more rooted. I am glad my art has a part in my life. I love how it is becoming entwined with my spiritual growth.

Maybe one day I’ll discover my true purpose which God has for me.

Finally completed…

I waited a few days before calling this one done. I wasn’t sure if there was anything more I wanted to do with it. I had thought maybe I would add some designs to the background but decided on just this simple pattern from a stencil I created. I used watercolor through the stencil similar to the background colors. Then I added dark shadow lines and white highlight lines which in real life makes the shapes pop up off the page. Sometimes when I look at it, I’m sure it would feel like I applied texture paste. I didn’t. It is just an illusion which is something I love just as much as I would have loved the physical texture.

This is probably one of my favorite spreads in my journal probably because it is the first time I did a puppy and the puppy made itself known from the background design. All of his contours were in the background all I did was draw around the shape. And I mean even the eyes and ears. I didn’t have to do anything but add the detail to the eye and his little nose. Even the eye was already looking upwards. The fact that he reminds me of our dog is a wonderful surprise.

To think that this all developed from a major mess when trying to create a floral pattern using watercolor just astounds me.

 

 

Continued progress…

I am working on my girl, slowly but surely. After my last post, I added color for her hair. This took a couple layers of watercolor. I wanted to use a different color from the color palette I have used so far, so I chose yellows and orange with a bit of brown and black for shading. I used similar colors for her eyebrows but chose to make them a bit darker.

After adding the hair, I felt I needed to add something else.

The first thing I did was take out my Prisma Colored pencils and add some more shading to her face and a bit of blush to her cheeks. I softened her chin more.

With the puppy looking up, I needed to add something for him to be looking at. I like using napkins for collage and I had some with flowers, butterflies and birds, so I decided to get them out and see what would go well. I chose the hummingbird and a flower. They were in similar colors to what I had used. I had forgotten to take apart the layers before using matte medium to adhere them to the surface but that was okay. I didn’t really want the background showing through them. Leaving the layers intact, the napkins were sturdier but also took a bit more to glue them down.  In some areas, I had to add matte medium between the layers because they were lifting a bit.

Once the collage was dry, I used colored pencils to add some color to make the flower and bird pop out more. I also added some white ink from my Signo pen and some black ink from a Uni-ball Air pen. I attempted some eyelashes with the black pen but I’m not crazy about them. I need to practice more with creating eyelashes.

The more I work on her the more I see some of the things I would have changed if I noticed them before adding color that couldn’t be removed or changed. Her chin is definitely off center and one eye is higher than the other. I might be able to fix the eyebrow that is smaller and make it slightly larger.

I need to learn to look closer at the sketch to see if I can find these things before adding paint. Some paint can be adjusted but once more layers are added the harder it is to make any major changes.

Despite these little things, I am happy with how it is turning out. I want to do more with the background, just not sure what right now. Probably use some stencils to add some visual texture. This is where I can go really wrong if I’m not careful in choosing the right colors. I have overworked backgrounds before by doing too much to them and I don’t want to do that with this one.

 

Focus, mindset, learning and taking my time…

I am taking my time with this one and totally loving it.

I wasn’t sure if I would stay with the same color palette when I added color to the puppy. I am glad I did! I love how they are both developing. Other than the white acrylic paint I used to tone down the background, everything is done in watercolor with a bit of the Elegant Writer when I first start building shadows.

I feel like I need to talk about my state of mind the past month or so. I have made mention that I’m on the search for a new job. This is what has kept me distracted from my art and a bit off balance. It’s okay. It is important to allow our focus to shift to those things which are important in our lives. Though art is important, searching for a job and finding the right one that fits for me is even more important.

I have learned over the past few years, the importance of understanding who we are and what makes us tick. It has been an interesting deep dive. I knew I had artistic ability and I also knew I am very logical. After working in IT (information technology), I had grown to believe my logical side was the strongest and didn’t see the creative aspects I incorporated into my work. Since taking up pencil, paper, paint and pen again, I have come to realize I am equally creative and logical and have been using creativity to help me in my work. It is so easy to mistake creativity as just a product of what our logical mind is working on and not thinking of it as being creative at all. We can so easily overlook that our creativity is really supporting our logical thinking to help us find solutions or build new concepts.

I use logic to work through problems and creativity to find alternative solutions. It is an interesting balance. Logically, I step myself through a process of asking myself questions to hopefully reach a conclusion. If I don’t know something, then I know I need to do some research. Sometimes the research doesn’t follow a linear path or logical path. Creatively, I know I can explore this even deeper by experimenting and exploring things which may appear to have no connection whatsoever to what I want to learn.

Something I found interesting is, what happens, when I step away from an issue or something I am trying to learn or understand, with the intention of going back to it later. All I want to do is give my mind a bit of a rest, so I get involved in something that isn’t related to what I was working on. Then out of the blue, a connection will be made, a solution found, or an answer is given for that problem I had set aside for a bit. I have had this happen quite often and my brain does this happy little neuron dance when it does.

I have this pension towards learning. It surprises me sometimes, when I look back on all of my skills and the amount of knowledge I have. They were acquired through alternative learning. In other words, I didn’t learn them in the typical classroom setting, or through typical training through the company or companies I worked for. I found alternative resources, sometimes reading a book, sometimes watching a video online, sometimes just playing around with an application to see what I could discover and other times just talking with people. Then there are times when I’m playing a video game with my daughter, I discover something new which can send me down another avenue for learning something unexpected.

It frustrates me sometimes when businesses or potential employers filter out applications all because a person doesn’t have education credentials. I have taught my daughter that she can learn anything she wants to learn and she can do it on her own. She can choose to take a class, or read a book, or explore the various options available which provide the information she wants to learn and understand. For us, everyday life is an educational resource and education is a life long endeavor.

Why is it potential employers don’t see what this means for them in the potential employee who applies for the position they have advertised is available? This question has baffled me. When things baffle me, I research. I have also come to this conclusion. If a potential employer doesn’t recognize the brilliance within a person who is constantly evolving and learning through alternative methods, then we would not be a good fit anyway.

This just means it might take longer to find that perfect fit for us both (employer and employee) in my job search. That is okay. It means my focus might be shifted a bit and I might not progress as quickly as I have in the past on the pieces of artwork I am working on. That is fine. In fact, I am finding with this change in focus, I am not just more thoughtful in regards to my job search, I am also more thoughtful in regards to my artwork.

In learning to take chances in my job search, I am also learning to take more chances in my artwork. I love how changing my mindset in one area bleeds into my mindset in other areas and allows me to expand in ways I never dreamed possible.

What ways do you like to learn? Do you find your interest to learn is widespread or narrowly focused? I have to say my interests are widespread with no boundaries on what I like to learn and I learn through all my senses.

 

Art Journaling and Flowers…

From time to time I read other artist’s blogs. More often though, I read their comments on Facebook through artist/creative groups or in the emails they send out to their subscribers. If I didn’t do this, I know my journey would feel like a very lonely one or I might have given up on it long ago. I know I am not alone with trying to work through various aspects of my journey which I feel the need to write about in this post today.

This is just a short list of what is on my mind today:

1. Watching/Viewing other artists as they create
2. Trying to figure out what medium I should work in
3. Is it my style or just a replica of another person’s style
4. Avoidance/procrastination, which is it

The first, watching/viewing  other artists as they create, causes interesting reactions, and often conflicting reactions within me. What draws me to watching other artists and why do I watch them? If, I watch an artist, it is because there is something about their work which intrigues me. Either, I love what they create or there is something about what they create which intrigues my imagination. In both cases, it creates a desire to want to learn. In the later, after observing their process, I may or may not want to attempt duplicating the technique. In the former, watching usually results in a desire to try and replicate the technique, and the artist usually makes it look easier than it is. I can easily fall into the trap of listening to my inner critic telling me I’ll never be able to do what the artist did which can result in various outcomes. One being I never try it. Another being I try it and get really frustrated because it is harder than anticipated, resulting in feelings of inadequacy, which may or may not result in continued attempts hopefully resulting in an adequate duplication of the technique. Another could be, and has happened on rare occasions where the technique either comes naturally to me or I am pleased immediately with how well I am able to duplicate it. Then on even rarer occasions I find a way to adapt the technique. This last is new for me.

The second on my list, trying to figure out what medium I should work in, is something I never thought would become an issue. Discovering mixed media, at first, felt like a Godsend. I suddenly felt like I had discovered something which wouldn’t confine me to a set of rules and I could do anything I wanted to do. As I added different mediums to my supplies for some of the courses I was taking, it was easy to choose the supplies to use according the course and create the lesson. However, when it came to creating my own art journal page or artwork, I had no idea what medium to use or mixture of mediums to use. I think this is because I relied too much on following the instructor’s lesson. Whenever, I played around on my own, many times the results were less than satisfactory, occasionally I would be pleasantly surprised by the outcome. The sheer volume of optional mediums to use can be staggering and impede the ability to make a choice as to which one to use.

The third, is it my style or just a replica of another person’s style, sort of goes along with the second item. I struggle a lot with trying to figure out what to create. I want to create something which is unique to me, something which tells my own story. I look at what I create from the lessons/courses I have to learn from and though I love what I created, when I look at them, I’m immediately reminded of the artwork the instructor created. It doesn’t feel like me. I don’t feel “me” emanating from the artwork. There are a couple where I attempted to “do my own thing” while still following the lesson and from those, what emanates from the artwork is a feeling of my inner struggles while creating them.  Below is an example:

very close to lesson

slight variation from lesson

complete variation from lesson

The bear is a very close approximation of a lesson from Life Book 2018. The second, I tried to add some of my own style to another Lesson in Life Book 2018 while incorporating some of the elements from the lesson. The third is completely my own for the same lesson as the second one. (I wrote about each of these in other posts here on my blog.) Though I really love the first one, it isn’t something that naturally comes to mind when I think about creating something all my own and when I look at it I see Tam (the instructor) all over it. When I look at the second one, the colors, the mixture of elements, all awaken the struggles I had when creating it. It was far from easy. The third one, emanates a strong sense of joy when I look at it. There were moments when I struggled with it but those moments are muted by the pure joy of how it all came together in the end.

This is what I want when I create something on my own. I don’t want to look at it and see another person’s style emanating from it like the first one. I know there will be times when I struggle like in the second one to find what works best for me, but I would rather it not have elements of another person’s style when those elements are not something I would naturally select.

I have often wondered how I know something is my own style. I think the three images above are a good example. Though the third is far removed from the other two in regards to subject or chosen elements, it definitely helps me to understand how I can use my emotional response to gauge what is my style and what isn’t.

The last on my list, avoidance/procrastination which is it, is something I have struggled with my whole life and not just in artwork. Some would probably say I avoid until I can’t avoid it anymore. Others would say I procrastinate until I have no other choice or the guilt becomes too much. I don’t ask for opinions from other people because they aren’t in my head to know what all is circling around up there which influences my decisions. More times than not, in other areas of my life, what looks like procrastination, what feels like procrastination, is my subconscious reading the universe and deciding on the best time to do whatever it is that is waiting to be done. Before that moment arrives I usually find obstacles in the way if I try and force the universe to bend to my will. When the moment arrives I will enter into a flurry of activity and nothing gets in my way, more often than not, doors are open before I even get to them.

Why is this in my list of things I’m trying to work through on my journey? Believe me, in this world, or as I was taught as a child, procrastination isn’t a good thing. Procrastination is thought of as avoidance, instead of as a tool. I have to fight against the brainwashing we receive as children to believe certain things, so many things which get in the way of feeling good about myself. This is just one of those. I have many examples where procrastination resulted in a good outcome, better than if I had tried to force the universe to my will, which would or could have been disastrous. Listening to that inner voice which tells me to do this, instead of that, and that tiny voice niggling at me saying I’m procrastinating has such a negative vibe, yes, it is something I need to alter the resonance of within myself.

In artwork, it can mean the difference between creating what my soul is calling out for me to do or slopping on mediums because I feel it needs to be done and not recognizing myself anywhere within it.

These are some of the things which have been going through my mind lately, between work, my studies, struggling to know who I am after the past few years of turmoil and what it is I want to do as an artist. In the midst of this, I’ve been feeling very lost and not sure how I can turn things around. Trying to force the universe to conform to what I want hasn’t worked. Not in the least.

I saw a video on Facebook today from one of the “America’s Got Talent” series. The guy who was about to sing, has 6 children that came out of foster care. He was asked what his goal, ambition dream was and he said something (regarding his children) I never heard before but suddenly resonated deeply with me. He said “when you are surviving you can’t dream…”. Everything suddenly clicked with me. I’ve been surviving for the past few years because of the life changing events which have occurred which make me feel as though our very survival has been threatened. Every time I tried to reach out to a dream I once had, or to find a new dream, it just wasn’t possible. It wasn’t there. I couldn’t come up with one. I didn’t understand why until I heard those words today.

Below is an art journal I started to create yesterday, before I heard those words, after I was going through a period of feeling lost, alone, and feeling like I should just give up, let whatever happens, happen.

The words I wrote on the spread which I am considering adding to it once it is complete is this: “I close my eyes and the world disappears. For a moment, I can believe everything is going to be just fine.”

She is done in watercolor. I started by sketching her in pencil and adding a bit of shading in pencil to get the contours correct, as close as I could around her nose. Then I added a very light tint of watercolor, I had left on my palette which looked like a previously mixed skin tone. It was close enough and in fact can barely be seen after I added the none traditional colors for shading.

I decided that some of my stress comes from trying to create exactly as I see things, so I thought using none traditional colors would help ease the stress I put on myself to make things “real”. I was right. I used about three different colors of blue, then some purple for the shading, then added yellow for some highlights. I’m not sure if I’m done with her face. It depends on how it looks once I add her hair and background. I haven’t decided what I’ll do for the hair and background right now. Usually, I don’t decide until, that moment I spoke about earlier (in the procrastination section) comes upon me and I know it is time to pick up my brush and paints.

Oh, I remember  I wanted to say something about selecting the mediums to use. I, often, feel like I should be using acrylic paint in my mixed media art. It isn’t because I love working in the medium. I had to think about why I would feel this way. I think part of it is because it is what I started learning first when I started learning about mixed media. Another reason is because it is in my art supplies and I feel like I should be using it. Another reason is because a lot of artists use it and I think I have to in order to do what I like so much about what they do. But once I tried watercolor (something better than the children’s watercolor, okay, really once I tried Prang) I’ve been hooked. I think I would be perfectly happy not using acrylic paint ever again, however, acrylic will work on other paper that watercolor doesn’t take to at all. So when I’m working in a journal that doesn’t have watercolor paper, or paper that doesn’t react well to water, then acrylic is what I reach for. Otherwise, I’m finding watercolor (sometimes mixed with a touch of white acrylic paint) is my medium of choice.

Back to my journal page. It took me a while to figure out what to create. All I knew was I needed to do something which would help me express what I was feeling. The earlier geometric design I created which was all my own style is nice and worked for what I wanted to do at the time but I knew this page needed something else. As I thought about how I was feeling, I knew I would need a face to help give expression to the page so it became my focal image. The words came after I sketched the face in pencil and knew she would have closed eyes. I have drawn enough faces that I was able to draw this one without a reference photo, except for the nose. I searched noses online and looked at a few of them to try and get the nose shaped better than I’ve done in previous pieces. I’m getting there.

I think I did good on not having the face look like any faces from other artists I’ve taken some lessons from. The hair though, in just the rough sketch is too reminiscent of one or two other artists, so it might change. This is where I have to let things germinate for a while to see what my imagination comes up with. For now, this is where I’m at.

I wanted to share the next few pictures because I’m thrilled with what I’m seeing. A few weeks ago I decided to pick out a couple plants and plant them in a flower pot to sit on my balcony. I wasn’t sure how well I would do with them or if I would end up killing them. I’m not great at keeping up with my inside plants so wasn’t sure how gardening outside would work out.

These are pictures of the plants. I may add more pictures in later posts if they continue to do well. There are two kinds but the two in the center don’t have any flowers right now. Like most flowering plants when you transplant them, it can cause a shock to the plant making them lose their flowers. It can be a bit of a crap shoot on whether they make it or not. The plants around the outside of the pot lost all the flowers they had in bloom after I transplanted them but now they are blooming all over the place. I’m just thrilled to pieces about this and our dog seems to like them as well. He’ll sniff them and then go lie down by them in the sunshine.  It appears the ones in the center have new buds coming up so can’t wait to see them. They are taller than the other flowers with large blooms and a different color so I’m thrilled to see them surviving and flourishing.

A few weeks ago I planted some seeds (pansies and petunias) inside. They are sprouting rather nicely. I hope to plant them outside in the next few weeks. I’ll have some nice flowers to use for some real life sketching if I can get past my perfectionist critic.

My Imaginary Garden

I’ve been working on this page intermittently for a few weeks. Mostly not working on it due to other priorities taking precedence. Taking my time with this page has taught me a couple of things. The first is that I can still be creative as an artist no matter how busy my life becomes. The second is I don’t have to be proliferate in order to feel I am a productive artist.

splash of watercolor paint

a bit of white acrylic to create shapes

use of Elegant Writer and Tombow markers to enhance shapes

 

 

the finale, white highlights and splatters

Inspiration for this piece came from watching several of CeeCee’s videos on youtube. I love her work in watercolor. She makes it look so easy but getting the soft blending and colors isn’t so easy. I think though my personal style may lean more towards brighter colors.

I really enjoyed taking a blank page and adding random colors in watercolor and then seeing what I can create from it. It is a wonderful exercise for the imagination.

God, artwork, dreams and reality….

Wow, time seems to be having quite a bit of fun with me since my last post on the 3rd of April. My work schedule seems to reflect this. I had one day off on the 3rd, worked 1 day, then 2 days off, worked 1 day, then 2 more days off, then worked 8 days. During each of the two days I had work done on my car, my windshield replaced, and multiple recall items replaced. Thankfully, my insurance covered the windshield and the recall items didn’t cost me anything. While the car was worked on I worked hard doing a much needed cleaning of our home. I still have a bit more to do, however, it feels good that a majority of it has been done. In the midst of all of this I did some artwork, art journaling, designing and focused on a class and some other studying. I’m going to talk about these but not necessarily in that order.

I’ll tackle the studying part first, and if you aren’t interested feel free to skip down to the next topic.

STUDYING:

I’ll give a bit of background. I grew up protestant with a leaning towards Baptist and later non-denomination Christian. The very first church I remember going to wasn’t either one of these, and I’m not sure what denomination it was considered. I remember enjoying Church there because there was no preacher, just elders who ran the church and on occasion invited speakers to our Sunday services. Generally, Sunday service for the family was conducted with someone reading a passage from the bible and different members standing and reading from the bible, intermixed with singing gospel songs. There wasn’t anyone to tell us how to interpret the scripture. Even Sunday school for the kids was an adult reading from the Bible and then talking to the children about what was read, generally they were well known stories, like Noah and the Ark. I believe this early introduction to this type of congregation influenced my opinion of churches later on. I’m not sure what led my parents to switch from that church to a Baptist church but they did. The difference between the two was extreme though as a young person I wasn’t adept at working out why when I had been taught from an early age to not question my parents or adults. I just know I couldn’t fully integrate into the way these later churches were run, not even the non-denominational churches and I tried several of them. This was no reflection upon my belief in God, only in the very nature of how Churches are run and Preachers preach their sermons.

With this being said, it has been years since I stepped into a church. It never fails though that each time I have, I felt there was something fundamentally wrong, because every time I walked out of church I felt worse than when I walked into it. As the years passed I stopped attending church even though I didn’t stop believing in God. I have developed different names to represent God, such as, Universe, which usually is my way of saying Universal Intelligence, or Greater Being, or Great Unknown, and so forth. This is just my way of accepting that there is something unknowable that is greater than all of us. I consider myself spiritual and not religious.

When I am faced with the need to understand something, I don’t rely on what other people say or believe. That has never been my way. Consequently, I research, I observe, I experiment, and I do whatever I can to satisfy that need to understand. It doesn’t matter the topic. Whether it is how a certain art supply will work with or not work with another art supply, or if it is what makes certain people tick or respond in the way they do, including myself, and yes this includes understanding God.

I am often confused as to why I am driven to the need to understand something when I am not at other times. For instance, creativity has always been a part of my life. Throughout my life I’ve used various ways to bring creativity into it. Art, such as drawing and painting, were not part of this between the end of high school and until a few years ago. Oh, for brief periods of only a day or two or a week at the most I might have tried to get back into sketching but I was never driven to understand my need for it until a few years ago. Just as I’m driven now to understand more about God or more importantly my beliefs after years of being absent from any church.

I used to think those years were absent of all desire to understand. When I look back on it now, I believe those years were my period to observe and sometimes experiment. Experimenting was rare however. Observing takes years, at least my way of observing takes years because I’m observing everything around me and storing up inside, my response to what I have observed. Once enough is stored, it then drives me to research, and study whatever I can find, in order to understand what I have observed and continue to observe.

You are probably wondering why or how all of this is related to my belief in God. Well, I’ve spent my whole life observing and storing up information. Now, I am driven to try and understand which means research. I often make this decision subconsciously which the World or Universe, or if you prefer, God responds to. I had no sooner made this decision subconsciously when a resource was made known to me. That resource is a 5 year journey called “Thru the Bible” which contains five years of recordings with Dr. J. Vernon McGee where he takes you through the whole Bible. I tried several times to read the Bible on my own but usually got discouraged and stopped. I don’t think I made it through more than a couple books on my own.

This journey I began on the 5th of April is different from all my other attempts to read the Bible from the beginning to the end. I’m not saying I agree with everything McGee says in the recordings but what I am finding is because these are recordings I’m able to slow down, listen to what he says about the chapter I read, and allow my own intelligence and spiritual guidance to come to my own interpretation. I write down notes which contains my questions, how I understand what I read or what I’m lead to understand.

When I say lead, I’m not talking about just McGee’s comments because more often than not his comments spark more questions which are often not in alignment with his interpretation. I’m finally understanding that I am quite literal. If McGee’s interpretation contains within it something that is not stated in the scripture I just read and he gives no supporting scripture, I tend to discard his interpretation or parts of it, unless I come across scripture that later supports his interpretation. I know he comes from years and years of study, schooling and experience but that doesn’t mean he is right in everything he says. In fact, I often find he has very condescending and what I feel are judgemental statements which tend to rub me the wrong way. I take that as a sign to explore more and so I do.

I have considered not listening any further to his recordings, however, if I did, then I would not have the catalyst I need. I know this because I start my study period by first reading the chapter. After reading the chapter I usually have little insight. When I follow that by listening to the recordings for that chapter while making notes, I gain more insight and understanding. It doesn’t stop there, sometimes the rest of my day I find myself often contemplating what I am learning. If I only read the chapter I would probably lose out on a good 75% of what I learn when I allow McGee’s comments to trigger the opening of doors to further understanding.

This will be a three to five year journey of studying the Bible (from beginning to end) and possibly other resources as I come across them. I am curious if this will somehow work its way into my artwork and whether it will become a life long journey. I do know this journey will not be an easy one because it has already created some amazing shifts in my understanding and reality.

When I enter into something that creates such major shifts, time flows strangely and the world around me alters in unexpected ways.

ARTWORK:

Last time, I started a page in my watercolor art journal, in an attempt to go lighter with the watercolor pigments that I did on my previous page. I had shown this picture of the first layer of watercolor:

Though the image shows a light blue in the colors there really wasn’t any. It was the untouched watercolor paper or areas barely touched by paint that showed up with a blue tint. Seeing this in the photo made me want to play with adding other colors.

You can see in the below image where I added some blue and some more yellow. In some places where the blue touched yellow, the mix created a green or blue-green color. I let some of the blue run or drip. I then let it dry.

Once it was dry, I used a graphite pencil to create some shapes, then used white acrylic paint around the shapes, trying to bring them forward. I didn’t want to cover the whole background with this layer of white so I left some areas alone.

It has probably been a week since I worked on this page. I’m still trying to decide what to do next. I’m thinking doodles. In the meantime, and in between my studies and art journaling, I was lead to focusing on a class.

CLASS & Journaling:

In December 2017, I purchased the Art Bundle for Good. I learned about the Art Bundle in early 2017 and made my first purchase. The Art Bundle for Good is a project created or organized by John Bardos which provides some amazing art resources at an unbelievable discount and portions go to a worthy charity. When I first learned about it, I wasn’t sure about it but gave it a try and now I’m so glad I did. Having purchased two of the Art Bundles I’m amazed and thrilled with all that is included. I have resources that will last me for years so even if I can’t purchase another art class, there are enough courses in the two Art Bundles to keep me busy for a long time.

From one of these resources I received an email stating that Dream Lab was shutting down. I had only glanced at this opportunity when I went through the process to acquire the courses provided from the Art Bundle in December. I quickly emailed the owner, Andrea Schroeder asking if I would lose access to the courses. She quickly replied, stating no, that she was just altering the free course she had available, basically upgrading it and changing its name.

What this email did was to make me look at the courses I received from Andrea in the Art Bundle to see how they fit in my current life. I admit, I have been struggling with attracting what I want to have in my life, so when I saw the email and reviewed the courses, I thought “why not”. It couldn’t hurt. The course I’m talking about is “Creative Dream Incubator”. Her approach is very simple and what I love most about her lesson is the simplicity of it. Her artwork may not look like what I would create but it shows me that it doesn’t have to be elaborate or a masterpiece. People with little to no art skills can use her methods and techniques in helping to bring about a particular dream they may be struggling with developing and want to have in their life. I do believe it is based on the law of attraction but she takes it down to a more simplistic level for those who are not accustomed to or understanding what all is involved in the law of attraction. She provides simple tools you can learn to apply in your everyday life. I am up to module three. There are six modules in total.

I will admit that even with the simple methods I’m still learning how to apply them every day. I need to find ways that work for me. What I find interesting is in the artwork in particular I have added some of the steps before I read the module where she suggests adding particular things. So for me the artwork for supporting my dream comes naturally while the rest of the supporting elements doesn’t. I believe this is due to my being taught to not ask questions when I was a child and due to my environment causing me to focus on the negative instead of the positive things in life. I am hoping these methods will help me to alter that aspect of myself.

I won’t be adding pictures of this lesson for two reasons. The first is I feel the need to keep it private but wanted to write about the class in case others might be struggling with similar issues and want to give it a try. The other reason is Andrea worked hard on these courses and the pictures would be giving away too much of her hard work. I am recording my progress in my journal, which is the journal I use almost daily and my version of a bullet journal. This class isn’t just helping me with learning how to create my dream but it is also helping me to learn ways in which I can use my journal to support those dreams.

OTHER:

For a while now, I’ve had a couple things on my mind. Stencils/Masks and stamps. I read an article in the March/April 2018 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors called “Printing Lab: Carved Monotypes” by Dawn Emerson. Even before reading the article I have been wanting to find a way to make my own stamps. I have already made a few of my own stencils and masks, which I want to continue to do.

I don’t know why but this is something I keep putting off. There was a discussion in one of the groups on Facebook about copyright issues when using commercial stamps and stencils in artwork people want to sell. Like others I feel it is crazy when a product you buy can’t be used in your own artwork that you want to sell, especially if the person selling the artwork isn’t just selling a print of the image but has added their own artwork as well. I won’t go into the legalities of this. It is too complicated and too volatile of a topic.

I have in the past purchased some stencils and stamps. I use them only for my personal artwork. Since I don’t currently sell any artwork, it isn’t an issue. From the very start of getting into mixed media I have always felt the need to have everything in my artwork be my unique artwork. This is just one of the many reasons I also don’t do collage very much using commercially created items. I won’t get into that either. With wanting my artwork to be my own unique artwork it means if I want to use stenciling/masking or stamping techniques and collage techniques then I need to create my own. There is one benefit to making my own. I can do it cost effectively.

Below are two of my new stencil designs. I drew them on regular printer paper using pencil, then went over the final design in ink and scanned them into my computer. Scanning them serves a few purposes. It saves them in case the original copy gets destroyed. I can increase or decrease their size or even use just a portion of the design. I could potentially sell the design too. If printed at original size on 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper there is a small border around the edge which may not show up in this image.

I hope to use some of my images from Inktober 2017 to create stamps. You can see the images from Inktober 2017 here.  This takes me back to the article I read in Cloth Paper Scissors. In the article the artist created a monoprint from an image she carved into wood. This gave me the idea to try and use my wood burning tool to carve an image into a small piece of wood, seal it, and use it as a sort of stamp. I haven’t tried this yet but plan to in the near future. I also picked up some carving material used to make stamps so I can experiment to decide which method works best. It is possible one works best for certain applications while the other works best for other types of applications. I’m excited to give this a try and see what develops.

I often feel like I’m not doing much when it comes to my creativity. To alleviate me of this perception I started listing in my daily journal the things I have done that day. Sometimes, it is true, that I haven’t done any artwork but there is creativity in almost everything we do. Sometimes I have to get creative in accomplishing the mundane things in my life. Creating this list also helps me to see when other things have taken precedent and it is generally easy to see why.

I leave you on that note now. My studies call to me as well as those mundane things in life that need to be taken care of. Feel free to comment. Hearing from those who take the time to read my post is one of the more simpler joys in life.

❤ ❤ ❤

The madness of being a rock…

I’m not sure where this post will end up. I have a feeling I will spill more onto this page than people might want to hear. My intention for this blog is to talk about my journey as an artist but a person can’t do that without spilling their guts about other aspects of life because an artist can’t create art without life getting on the page or into the paint or ink or whatever medium is used.

I started this bear over two weeks ago.

About a week ago, on February 23rd, I finished him.

On February 22nd, while waiting on portions of my bear to dry, I read an article, Creative Tarot Journaling Made Easy. I decided to select a prompt and give it a try.

After completing the bear, I decided to create my alternative version to him in my own style.

This is still a work in progress. It is taking much longer to complete than anticipated.

There is a story between all these layers. I can’t talk about these three pieces without filling in the story which exists between the layers. The layers represent the many layers which are occurring in my life. Mixed media art or any art for that matter isn’t just laying down layers of paint and then creating an image on the page. Every piece of art, no matter the medium, has the artist’s life interwoven within it. Unless you are an artist it might be difficult to comprehend exactly what I’m trying to express here. I’ll try but I’m afraid I might fail at really helping non-artists (if there really are any non-artists, everyone is creative in their own way) to understand.

I have had to learn to give myself some space in regards to working on my projects. What that means is, if I’m feeling resistance then I back off. Resistance comes in many forms and sometimes it is difficult to know the source of the resistance. I have to discover what that source is in order to move forward. Then, sometimes, moving forward takes time because there maybe a need to process something before I can release it into my artwork.

On February 14th, I heard some not so good news. It wasn’t awful but it has created a bit of friction emotionally for me. The news is that the income I’m receiving in my current job isn’t enough. This has triggered a return of anxiety which so far is manageable. That anxiety is rooted in varying aspects of my past, from childhood, to several relationships the worst being the last relationship I had, to fighting breast cancer, to being laid off and to the last of having trouble just getting a job. Knowing I need to go back to job hunting is also triggering depression. This has also taken the joy out of the job I’ve been doing. I thought it would be enough. To find out it isn’t has not been easy to accept.

The bear is my version of Tam’s Compassionate Bear lesson in Life Book 2018. The Universe has a way of timing things perfectly, for this lesson could not have come at a better time. It reminds me to be compassionate with myself, especially now after hearing the news and each time I apply for any jobs that are posted.  It is difficult to remain compassionate as the weeks go by without any calls for interviews. It is even more difficult to not allow emotions to surface relating to not being good enough. When I wrote in the previous paragraph that the job wasn’t enough, it made me realize that what I heard when I received the news was that I wasn’t good enough. Even though I know this is not true, old emotions arise from my past when circumstances made me feel that way.

There are so many emotions being triggered right now, some of them can be overwhelming. I could have written so many things on my Compassionate Bear and all of them would have felt fake even though they might be true. The one thing that felt true and seemed to put my unrest at ease was “You are loved.”

I posted this bear on the Life Book Facebook group and realized when I looked at the picture that he also looks a bit like a mouse. An interesting combination because though mice seem small and delicate they are quick and cunning. Bears may appear slow but they are strong and dangerous.

These are things I didn’t think about until just now, which is why I love to write about my art and my life together. I find insights like these which can help me deal with “life”. I have always felt an affinity towards bears because of my last name. There could not be two more opposite creatures, the bear and the mouse, and yet somehow they seem to fit together within my Gemini personality. I will be the first to admit that I have opposing forces strong within me which can make me appear to be a very complicated person. This might be why my individual style seems to be focused around mandalas which help me combine these forces into a central focus.

The hard part the past few weeks has been to not let the news suck me down into the emotional turmoil I felt for a year and a half after hearing the news of the workforce reduction I was caught up in. They don’t like using the words lay off anymore. Like a change of wording can make a person feel any better about such a situation. No it isn’t for the people being laid off to feel better. It is to make those making the decision to lay off workers feel better or not so bad. Okay, I went there. I didn’t mean to go there. But it hurts. I’m angry still after two years. And the news just reawakened all of those feelings.

Consequently, working on my art has been in small doses. I work on something for a bit, like on the bear, I would do a layer and then let it dry. Most times I let it dry far longer than it needed to. Meaning it was dry long before I returned to it.

During one of the breaks, the choice to do the Tarot drawing and then an art journal page on it was a good choice.

The prompt I chose was important to me. During a time when I was not feeling happy, I needed a reminder of what does make me happy. I don’t want to say I was surprised by the cards I pulled. Rather, I was, intrigued by what they confirmed.

My intent was to pull just one card but as things often happen with me, my intent isn’t what needed to happen. The Universe took over and I ended up with two cards in my hand. When I flipped them over at the same time, the first thing I noticed was they were both Major Arcana cards, IV The Emperor, and XVII The Star. I won’t go into my complete reading of these cards, some of it is too personal. I will tell you a bit about it because I feel it is important in regards to my current situation and my art journey.

What I came to understand from the cards is my happiness comes from balance, stability, reason, logic, harmony and hope. I put these things in overlapping large circles on my page because they all influence each other in one way or another. I used to listen to people who said I ‘think’ too much. When they would say this, I took it as a bad thing, and that my reasoning, and my logic were bad parts of myself which I needed to tone down or find a way to not rely on so much and learn to be less of these things in my life. Consequently, I fought against them. I would use logic and reasoning to understand something and then I would try and use a not so logical way of overcoming a situation or problem. Until I did this Tarot drawing, I didn’t realize how much logic and reasoning brought me happiness.  I also didn’t realize how much logic and reasoning also inspired hope.

I found it interesting to also note that my 2018 word ‘balance’ showed up. It makes sense that harmony and stability are part of my happiness. Those words just seem to go along with balance for me this year and have shown up in previous artwork since I chose the word balance.

What this reading did for me was tell me to stop fighting against the things I do naturally. To allow my instincts to guide me. I have always known that when I’m faced with a challenge my first instinct is to let logic and reasoning take over. I need to understand the situation and the best way I know how to do that is by use of logic and reasoning. Fighting against it means I throw myself into turmoil which just amplifies the emotions which I relate to stress. I end up feeling like my life is beyond my control.

The smaller circles on this page represent elements in my life that make me happy. I have a few more things to add to this page which will be other elements which can influence my happiness. They will end up being words that float around in the white space.

I enjoyed this exercise using Tarot cards and I may do more of them.

This is my current work in progress. It is my alternative piece for the Compassionate Bear lesson. When I started it, all I knew was I would start it using the grid method I use for drawing mandalas and at its center I wanted a heart. The heart would represent the ‘You are loved’ statement on the bear. What I like about this design is I can add writing around the design if I feel the need to do so.

All of these pieces are done with Prang watercolor paint. The yellow however is Daler Rowney watercolor. I ran out of the Prang yellow so I substituted a Daler Rowney yellow from one of the yellows in the Simply watercolor tube set I have.

I’ll briefly describe the process for each:

Compassionate Bear: sketched in pencil on watercolor paper. I wanted a happy multi-colored bear so I used purples, blues, blue-green, yellow, magenta, green and white watercolor. India ink and dip pen for the black sketchy outline and marks, and tried some India ink using a brush for shading which was a bit tricky and I ended up layering over some of it with more watercolor because I didn’t like how it turned out. The white is either acrylic white paint or Uni-ball Signo broad gel pen.

What Makes Me Happy?:  Tombow markers for the title lettering. Using pencil and compass I created the circles, then Prang watercolor to fill them in and Tombow markers around the edges to define the edges better. Uni-ball AIR black pen for the words inside the circles. I’ll use the same pen when I add any words or phrases in the background.

Alternative to Compassionate Bear: using painters tape, taped the watercolor paper down to hardboard, thoroughly wet the paper and randomly added Prang watercolor paint, yellow, orange, red, red-orange and magenta. Let it dry completely. Using pencil, compass, and ruler lightly drew in a mandala grid. Pigma micron pen, permanently drew in the shapes I wanted that I had drawn in pencil in the grid, then added in patterns within the shapes using the same micron pen (size 01 or 03). I erased any pencil lines I didn’t want or need anymore. I am currently at the stage of using Prisma Colored Pencils to add shading and color to the various patterns. This always takes the longest.

As I stated earlier, I may add some writing around the design to support the ‘compassionate’ nature of this piece. I don’t really plan these pieces, they develop as I work on them. They sort of let me know what needs to be done next. Sometimes the next step doesn’t always make sense to me and I fight against it, like the blue I am adding now. It didn’t make sense when I felt the need to do it but somehow it works, even though there isn’t blue anywhere else in the piece.

I’m currently in an emotional place which feels like I’m struggling both artistically and in every day life and work. I try to tell myself that I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now but it feels like a platitude. I feel like I’ll never get ahead and the reason for that is years and years of neglect and wasting the resources I had available to me. I would say more but I’m afraid I would sound like a whining brat and that isn’t where I am right now, or I  hope I’m not.

I guess what I’m trying to say is for some reason the Universe feels the need to put me through this turmoil when all I want in my life is peace and harmony. What I’m thinking right now is maybe what I’m supposed to learn is peace and harmony are always present even in the turmoil. Am I able to be that rock in the middle of a raging river and let the turmoil flow around me, letting the friction shape me into what I need to be even at the risk of being unseated? Ever wonder how the rocks got there in the first place? Some of them look like they were just plunked down in the middle of the river, while others look like they grew right out of the riverbed. In school, we learn they were there all along, appearing slowly over time as the water slowly eroded the soil and gravel around them.

I sometimes wonder how many artists really think about how their lives appear in their artwork or how their artwork helps them to understand their lives. Or do they paint or draw because if they don’t they will go mad?

 

 

Something different…

Since writing my last post I decided to try something a bit different. I’ve said many times how I am drawn to drawing mandalas. I prefer using a ruler, compass and protractor when I do draw them. I started by drawing a grid for a mandala, then added some additional lines in the grid to create the square border and the inner diamond shape. Then other shapes started to emerge.

I didn’t take any pictures while creating this design, so the only pictures I have are after its completion.

Once I had the design drawn in pencil that I wanted, I went over it with Pigma Micron pen so I wouldn’t lose the design the subsequent steps. I then used Prang watercolor paint to color in the shapes and the background. I truly love working with watercolors. I love making gradients or just letting them bleed and blend together. Next, I took my spray bottle with water in it and spritzed water over the dry watercolor paint. I let it sit for a bit and then lay a clean paper towel over top of it and pressed it down with my hands, then lifted the paper towel. This created a mottled appearance to the watercolor paint. I let this dry.

I selected my one set of Tombow markers. The set I have is the primary palette which meant I didn’t have all the colors and had to select a complementary color if I didn’t have one the same color as the watercolor paint in the area I wanted to use them. I wanted to define the outlines more for the shapes so I used the markers along the edges following them with my water brush to soften the lines. I used the black around the outside edge and softened it as well.

My next choice was to use a Uni-ball Air black pen to create some patterns in some of the shapes. Then Prisma colored pencils, using black, red, yellow and white for the circles to add shading and highlights to create depth. I used white, magenta and hot pink for the leafy patterns inside the diamond shape. Using a white gel pen I added some white dots in the background and some highlights throughout the piece.

I’m thrilled with how this came out. I enjoyed working on it. I’m pleased that this is my own design. The shapes thrill my logical brain, and also please my artist’s eye, as do the colors.

The last thing I did, which was done after I took the pictures, was write in white gel pen around the black border those things I want to bring forward with me or manifest in 2018.  This then became my alternative version of the garden fairy for Week 1, Tending Your Dreams, lesson with Tamara Laporte for Life Book 2018.

I really like this version.

With this addition the page feels more complete than it did before adding the words. This is what I was talking about in my previous post about using Tam’s methods but altering it to fit my style or the things I love to create. I think this works well for me and I may see if this will also work for the compassionate bear bonus lesson. Of course, it won’t be a compassionate bear at least not in the way Tam created hers.