A Carnival Ride

My mark making has the feel of being on a carnival ride…

I started this doodle over a month ago and just finished it Saturday:

I used Micron pens and a new set of Uni-ball fineliner drawing pens.

Perhaps it influenced this one in my sketchbook with Copic Markers and Micron pens:

And the bright colors of watercolor, Neocolor crayons and Copic Markers in this one, definitely make me feel like having some cotton candy! Lol!

Sometimes life can feel a little like a carnival ride with its unexpected twists and turns.

I find creating marks and patterns quiets my mind and helps me tune out life’s stressful times.

Peace be with you! 🙂

Cheers!

So Noted…

I have discovered two fabulous ways to get one’s creative juices flowing as warm-up exercises in art making.

I learned these ideas from Anita Lehmann in her online class, Translating Landscapes, hosted by Carla Sonheim.

The first idea involves creating marks with a variety of art mediums and tools.  One “natural” tool was a stick!  I had so much fun dipping a stick into ink and “making marks” with it… And using a variety of materials to create this piece:

The second idea was making marks while listening to music.  I created this piece while listening to Eva Cassidy and Natalie Merchant:

I enjoyed both exercises.

So noted, my favorite was the one with the music!

I encourage you to turn up the music and create!

Cheers! 🙂

Make Marks

Sometimes I just like to “play” with my art supplies and make marks!  I don’t have a plan or outcome in mind.  I just like to see what happens!

I created this piece in my handmade art journal on Khadi – 140 lb cold press 100% cotton rag paper:

I started with random mark making with oil pastels and then added a layer of watercolor.  Let dry.  Added more watercolor and finished with oil pastels. I like how the oil pastels resist the paint.

My next “experiment” I started with a piece 140 lb cold press watercolor paper in the same manner.  The only difference was I added a layer of glue resist with a glue stick after my first few layers.  I also added watercolor and scrapped it across my paper with a plastic scrapper (an old credit card):

I don’t know if these experiments are finished… But I know I had fun!!  I encourage you to give it a try!

How do you like to experiment with your art supplies to create marks?  I’d love to hear from you!

Cheers!! 🙂

Gelli-Printing Experiments

I enjoyed doing these acrylic printing experiments on the Gelli-plate while at the lake last week.

Here are some of my results…

Printing on deli paper, I added some metallic paint that I hadn’t done before – not sure you can see it in my photos but it gives an interesting sparkle to them:

I tried drawing patterns with a permanent black pen first before adding several layers of acrylics on the Gelli-plate.  The watercolor paper on the left is hot-press and the right is cold-press.  I found that the cold-pressed paper added a nice texture to my design.

I made various marks using Neocolors and Tombow markers first.  I used 90-lb hot-press watercolor paper on both of these:

I like how the water-soluble marks bled or softened depending how much water I used with the acrylic paints.

I added some watercolor or gouache paints to the background of these first.  Can you see the negative print of a leaf (red outline) on the print on the left?

And for this last one, I painted my circles with gouache first on 140-lb cold-pressed watercolor paper.  I was careful to allow some of the gouache to show through my acrylic paint layers.  I really liked this one:

I’m curious to hear what you think!

Happy experimenting!  🙂

Experimenting With Watercolor

In preparation for World Watercolor Month that starts tomorrow, July 1st, I decided to experiment with my paints!  You can find out more about it here:  https://doodlewash.com/world-watercolor-month-july-2016/

World Watercolor Month was created by Charlie O’Shields at Doodlewash.com!  YAY Charlie!

Sometimes it is just plain fun to mix colors in transparent and opaque paints and make patterns using different sized brushes.

I was inspired by this book to give this project a try:

These were the different sized brushes I used:

I selected 3 different papers.  The first one was new to me.  I recently purchased “Khadi” paper from Amazon for another project.  I wanted to see how the paper would absorb the watercolor.  I also used Fabriano hot and cold-press paper.  All the paper was 140 lb.

I also decided to experiment with both transparent watercolor (I primarily use Winsor and Newton) and opaque (gouache) watercolor.  I have some student grade gouache paints from Reeves that are OK but I wanted to try my recent splurge of professionally grade ones from Holbein.

Here are my experiments:

Khadi cold-press paper:

This paper was fun to use but took a lot of water.  Therefore, the intensity of my transparent paints on the left look pretty similar to the opaque ones on the right.

Fabriano cold-press paper:

As you can see above, my opaque colors are much more intense on the right side of this paper.  I also noticed a big difference in quality using the Holbein Gouache.

Fabriano hot-press paper:

The Fabriano hot-press paper had similar results in intensity as the cold-press paper to me.

It was very meditative to do this experiment.  I am sure I will refer back to it in the future for different color combinations.

I hope you will be splattering the watercolor paints along with me in July!

Happy Painting!  🙂

An Abstract View

In May, we start packing up our car and heading to the lake on the weekends.  I thought you might enjoy seeing some of our views from our drive to the lake – in an abstract way!

In the Spring, the wild Lupines grow in the meadows in shades of blue and purple:

As the days get longer and summer arrives, so do fields of daisies and purple wild flowers:

In the fall, the cattails appear growing in a marsh area next to the highway:

I hope you enjoyed the drive!  I’d like to explore these small abstracts in greater detail.  These were done on 6 x 4.5 inch hot press watercolor paper with Neocolor water-soluble crayons.

Happy Exploring!  🙂

Recycled Art

I have several paintings that I created in experiments that I wanted to recycle into something else.

I started by painting over my images with Golden fluid acrylic paints.  I added random marks and scratched into some of the paints while they were still wet with the end of my paintbrush.  Below is a frog I did on hot pressed watercolor paper:

I liked how the marks revealed some of colors underneath, like this pear painting I did on cold pressed 140 lb paper:

I found this very meditative to just play without thinking about the outcome.  Next, I decided to cut them up into squares and rectangles and draw on them with Uniball gel pens:

I then attached them to notecards:

I really like how they turned out!  What do you think?

How do you recycle your art?  I’d love to hear your creative solutions!

Happy Recycling!  🙂

One Dozen

I am always so inspired by YOU!  Each one of you inspire me in a DOZEN or more ways every day so THANK YOU!

Jodi at Life In Between and Laura at Create Art Everyday inspired me to pull out the art supplies and play yesterday!  Sometimes it is FUN to just get the hands moving!

I created this piece with Neocolor II Water soluble crayons and Inktense Blocks:

This free experimentation led me to create one dozen roses:

I started this piece with a dip pen in black ink.  I colored the flowers with Neocolor II crayons and then added water:

I finished my “bouquet” by adding two colors of blue and softening it with water.

It was so FUN to play!  Thank you Jodi and Laura for inspiring me with your creativity!

Happy Coloring!  🙂

Warm and Cool

Sometimes it is fun to experiment in colors that are not my typical choices.  I noticed that the colors I used to create my Red-bellied Woodpecker yesterday were both warm and cool:

So I decided to use similar colors when painting papers with acrylics for later in collage.

Here are some of my painting results:

I like how they turned out, how about you?

I challenge you to create in colors that aren’t your “go to” colors.  The results may surprise you!

Happy Painting!  🙂

Playing with Paints – Part 1

I created these papers on Fabiano hot press 90 lb paper that comes in a tablet.  It is one of my favorite papers to use in my artwork.  It is not really meant for acrylic paint but I make it work to use in other art projects.

It was really fun to splash the paint around!  I used both Golden fluid acrylics and Liquitex heavy body acrylics with a little water. I used my finger for the red dots above.

I used a stencil on these two papers:

And for the one below, I used a chopstick to make the black marks and a sewing pattern wheel to make the tiny dots!

And for this one, I scratched into the wet paint with the end of my paint brush to reveal the colors underneath:

I also used a paper towel in the top left corner and a wax candy wrapper to make the black marks in the upper right.

I hope you will join me tomorrow to see how I use them in a collage!

Happy Creating!  🙂