Video Blog: Paper Pieces, Wooden Pieces
I just finished this Mini Smash Book. You will see it in the video with art journal prompts that you can use for your journal. Before the journal I will show you my method for organizing decorated papers.
There’s also a wooden collage that I am working on with my husband!
Light, Water and Fire
This watercolor painting is one of those I made for the video Watercolor 101 for Intuitive Painting. The painting uses the techniques presented on the video, so I won’t publish phase photos this time as they are on the video. Buy the video and you’ll learn the techniques!
This blog post is about doubt – the doubt that all the beauty you can create in your art does not really exist. Who cares? Well, at least I do. To be exact, a part of me does. Besides design, I have a degree in computer science and sometimes I can be an overly organized and analytical person. So, there’s a little engineer in me who always questions what I am doing. I call her “he” here, just to separate the little engineer from the little artist (the artistic side of me) easily.
When she showed him the watercolor painting, the little engineer said:
– “Ok, but can this really exist?”
– “Well, it’s an intuitive painting expressing how I see the music”, she answered, feeling a bit offended.
– “It is called Graceful Aria”, the little artist continued.
– “I just see some kind of landscape there”, he said. “It makes me wonder if that kind of landscape could really exist.”
– “I don’t think the landscape is important here. If you want to grab something concrete, you should look for the light and water. This painting focuses on them.”
– “This is just the kind of dreamy thoughts from you, that I do not understand. I just see trees, mud and some sky. But to be honest – if you want to paint trees, mud and sky, you could do a better job there.”
The little artist gritted her teeth. But then she realized she could actually show the connection of light and water. Namely, the little engineer had filed all her photographs so that it would be really quick to find the nature’s wonders she had documented while the little engineer had controlled the leashes of the dogs.
“Remember this evening?”, she asked. “See how the light hits the leaves!”
“This spring was really rainy. You hated the rain, but look how beautiful and soft it can be!”
“And you must remember this magical morning, when the rain drops had frozen and it was like millions of diamonds were set on the trees!”
“When we walked home one afternoon, it was mesmerising to see the sky refelecting from the fresh asphalt. In the painting, the water creates wonders too. It makes the watercolors show their true beauty.”
“I always want to photograph this, when in March, the snow and light interact with each other. The snow is frozen water, did you know that?”
“Of course I knew that! Ok, you proved your point. If you could always present things as systematically as you did here, we would not have any problems, you know.”
– “I need a nap today since it’s so tiring to explain big things, like art, to you.”
– “I thought I was able to fire you up to get the blog post done! Go ahead and take the nap, meanwhile I can sort out and sharpen your colored pencils!”
Have Fun with Watercolors – Buy Watercolor 101 for Intuitive Painting
Create Pastel Softness!
This time it’s all cute! I had the feeling that this blog is getting too serious. Don’t get me wrong! I want serious, I love serious and hope that you do too! Still, behind all good art, there’s a big portion of imagination. And the best way to embark that imagination is to play a little!
Pastel Colors in Teddy Bears
So I asked my teddy bears if they were willing to help me with this post. And they responded: “Yes, sure!” When I interviewed them, they reminded me that there are two big factors in cuteness: softness and pastel colors. “My friend is a black teddy and he does not get so many hugs as I do”, said Apple Blossom. Pink Princess continued: “It’s not just the color, but it’s the fluffy softness that’s important too!” And then they both agreed that the huge nose and strong eye contact make a teddy even more successful.
Pastel Colors in Old Scrap Pictures
Then I showed them the old scrap pictures that I had found from an antique flea market some years ago.
“Oh yes!”, they giggled. “If you want to create something cute, these sure are good examples! Round shapes make them look reaaaaally soft!”
India Ink and Circles
I picked up my India ink bottles (used also in the video blog post last week) and tried to think about what kind of soft and cute to create with them.
Then I remembered the round shapes. That could be the start.
So I painted some round shapes with pastel colors on a thin watercolor paper. While painting, I noticed that to get beautiful pastels you need to use a lot of white. Sometimes adding a lot of white can create hues that lack softness if the base color is cold. You can fix that by adding some yellow or a tiny portion of black. Speaking of soft and white, meet another teddy of mine called Niamh …
I am not a big fan of white but who could not love the color after seeing her!
Clustered Shapes
Back to the painting: Small shapes were added near the large ones to create cute creatures. I made some large shapes form the part of the background. More shapes were painted to made creatures more interesting.
I made the shapes look dimensional and detailed with colored pencils.
Finishing
I finished the painting by adding more details and sharpening them with a white gel pen and a thin tip black marker. As a final touch, I added white acrylic paint on the face of the biggest creature. It lightens up the work and makes a great contrast with the black. Namely, if you look at the scrap pictures and the teddy bears, the black color makes pastels look so soft and bright. Small black dots here and there on a pastel colored circles can be enough to create a page that’s all soft and cute.
So, why not have a go: create a pastel colored art journal page to soften the hard world!
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Video Blog: Finding Inspiration from Plants
In this video blog post I am creating this art journal page and talk about finding inspiration from plants.
If you got interested in creating imaginative plant-inspired pages, see also the previous blog post mentioned on the video: Create Abstract Botanical Art!