It's A Watercolor World

  Hey y'all!...............Did you know that on this day in 1961, A chimp, by the name of Ham, went up in space?  He was the first primate in space. He was the one responsible for discovering that there are no bananas in space. What an accomplishment!

  But I digress..........Enough monkeying around. I will cut to the chase.

   Today's post is all about watercolor. I know, I know, I still owe y'all more posts on "Must Haves" in the studio and I will get around to that too. But, I have had a couple questions and some comments on watercolor that I thought I would address today.

  This week and possibly spilling over into next week, I have decided to spend my time in the studio, playing with all the many kinds of water media that I currently own. Yesterday I painted a Barn Owl using tube watercolors from a company called Mission Gold. These are very highly pigmented paints and create very saturated, intense color. I am still working on him and I plan on finishing him sometime today.

  I also have other materials I want to play with this week and next such as....watercolor pencils, watercolor crayons, water soluble graphite, Hydrus watercolors, which are a very concentrated form of watercolor paint and some water soluble inks. Those are going to keep me busy!


  I understand that some of you find watercolor to be intimidating, hard to control and plain scary. Well, I just want to say that, that's not necessarily so.

  Don't get me wrong, I am by no means a watercolor expert. I am still learning too. All art, of any kind is a never ending, learning experience. I am just going to share a couple things that I have learned along the way that might help some of you to get over that fear of water media.

  First....a couple of watercolor myths. ......"Watercolor is hard to control"  one thing to remember is, when applying watercolor to paper, the watercolor is only going to go where the water is. If you take watercolor, straight off the brush to dry paper, you will have total control of it. But, here's the thing. Part of what makes watercolor so exciting is the fact that it flows. So, if you put down a wash of water before adding the paint, the color will flow out and stay where the water is. You can get beautiful results this way. In my opinion, that is the true beauty of the medium!

  Second...... "Mistakes can't be corrected",  so not true! There are many ways to correct a watercolor boo-boo. Depending on the staining ability of a particular watercolor, color, The offending error can be lifted. You can use a damp brush to lift color back off. you can wet the area and use a tissue to dab the color and lift it. Use caution here though. DO NOT rub the paper or you may damage it. Just dab gently.

  Watercolor "Blooms" can be fixed as well. You can soften hard edges with a damp brush. And, here is an FYI for ya......Mr. Clean sponges are great at lifting unwanted color! yup! good 'ol Mr. Clean!

  If water puddles up in an area that you don't want it, just soak it up with a dry thirsty watercolor brush. That's it, easy peasy. Mistakes are not the end of the world so don't toss that painting, fix it!

  Okay........on occasion, you may find that you can't fix something. That's okay too. All you have lost is a little paint and a little of your time. But.....you have also learned! you have gained experience!

  I hope this post might inspire some of you to at least try out water media. You have nothing to lose. You won't know if you like it unless you try it. And like anything else in life,  the more you do it, the better at it you will become.

  In a future post, I will tell y'all how I go about creating a watercolor painting so stay tuned for that. Now go out there, fill up that water bucket, grab some watercolor paint and a brush and get creating. No fear!!!

 

A Serious, Series For Opposites Day. Seriously?

 Good Morning!      Did y'all know that today is opposite day? so I guess what that means is, whatever you say is actually the opposite of what you are really saying. Just so y'all know though, this post is going to be the opposite, of opposite day.  Capice?
   
     I am going to blog about something different this morning.  I have been blogging about studio "Must Haves" and I will continue to do that but......today.....I want to answer a viewers question about my reasons behind creating this particular series.

  I have been working on an art "series" now for awhile. The name of this series is "Childs Play". It is a series of graphite, black and white drawings of young children. I could of chosen any number of subjects for my series but this one struck a chord with me. There are a lot of artists that have drawn children, Norman Rockwell comes into mind as one of them.  Below is the first drawing in my series, drawn in 2016.........

  One of the reasons I chose children as my series subject was that I wanted to capture the simple innocence of being a child.

  To be a child, to see the world and everything in it as a new adventure waiting to be conquered. So many new things to do and explore. The feeling of freedom. Not being hampered by "have to's" and life agendas.

 It's a simple life. it's not complicated.

  I grew up way too quickly, although, I do consider myself to be an adult/child still. There is a part of me that most likely will never grow up, and that's okay. I have found that creating this series for me has been very healing.

  I don't know how many drawings there will be in this series. It is ongoing and as of right now, still going strong. Some series go on for years. Only time will tell.

  I am still working on the third drawing titled "Day Dreamer" This one is an 8X10 where as the other two are both in 9X12 format. The sizes may vary throughout this series but they will all be graphite. here is the new work in progress.....................

That's it for today's quick blog post. I am always happy to answer any questions. It's now time to go to work for me. Have a great day!

Studio Must Have's ....Part Deux

Well..............I am a couple days late posting this second post in my Studio Must Have's series, my only excuse is......I really don't have one. I just got distracted by some shiny object...again.

  Although hubby was off work yesterday so that does throw a wrench in the works. I find it difficult to concentrate on my work when he's home. I love spending time with hubby though and I try to take days off when he has his days off. Nuff said about that.

  Today's "Must Have" is a good one!  This is a small piece of equipment that I think every artist or even all you "doodlers" out there should have.

  But first, a small disclaimer....This piece of equipment will NOT draw for you. You still have to have a basic knowledge of drawing skills such as proportions. The best way to learn to draw is just by drawing. It's like learning to play the piano or any instrument, or learning how to ride a bike. The more you do it, the better you get. Practice makes perfect. You can watch all the videos and read all the books you can find but, unless you sit down and put pencil to paper, you won't ever improve.

So this small piece of equipment, what does it do?  It helps with judging distance and enlarging or reducing. It looks like this below and it's called a Proportional Divider........

  I picked mine up on Amazon.com but you can probably pick them up in a good art store. There are a few different versions of this on the market but they all do the same thing. How this works is, by using the orange tab, you adjust just how much you want to enlarge or reduce your image. Like when you take a photo with your cell phone. The photo image will naturally be small and you might want to make it into an 8X10 drawing say.

  By using this tool, you can do that. Also, it will help to measure distance between eyes in your drawing for example. But still, remember that it won't draw those eyes for you.

  I use it to double check my accuracy when drawing to check my proportions. I usually "eyeball" everything but this really helps get that initial sketch down correctly. I really find it to be an invaluable addition to my arsenal of art tools.

  So there it is, another tool that I just gotta have. Let's see, whats on my agenda for today? I am going to put more work into Harley Quinn..............

  And then I think I am going to break out my fine liners and do some pen and wash techniques. I have been wanting to play with my pens ever since i participated in this last #inktober2016. If I end up doing something half-way decent, I'll post it up later.

Olaf and I hope y'all have a great Thursday and a fantastic weekend. I will dig around my studio and find more "Must Have's" to share with you.

A New Year And "Must Haves"

It's 2017.....Can you believe it!..I still had not put away my Christmas decorations from last Christmas, seriously. The years seem to go by so fast now.

  I am not one for making New Years resolutions. I either don't seem to follow through on them or, by the time February rolls around, I don't even remember what my resolutions were. I instead just make them up as I go now. That seems to work better for me.

  What I thought I would do to start this year off is blog about some of the things that I just can't be without in my studio. I'm not talking about paint and pencils and paper, I know I need those things, I am talking about the work horses of my studio. The materials that make it possible to create my art and the little things that make my studio an inspirational, inviting and comfortable place to work. Maybe, you may discover something that might work for your personal space too. So, in the next few weeks, I will post some photos of what I do have in my studio and explain why I have them. I will also post photos of some of the oddities I have as well and I have a LOT of those!

  I find it's important to have a personal space. whether it's used for creating or just a place to hide from the world and find solace for a few hours a day. What you have in your personal space says a lot about who you are and boy....does my studio scream ELLEN !!!

  So lets see........first up is my drafting table..........

  I received this drafting table a year ago, from my hubby, for my birthday. Before, I was using a small table top easel with a masonite board propped up against it. It worked, sorta, but, it was precariously balanced and because of that, I would be working at it and suddenly it would fall to the floor. Let me tell ya......it's not fun when the corner of a very heavy masonite board hits your toe. Yep. Being an artist can be painful.

  This table was purchased through Amazon, (I love Amazon, who doesn't!), It was a Lightning Deal at the time. It was normally priced at around the $250.00 mark but my hubby got it for just $78.00!

  It has a smoked glass top and what I see a lot of artists doing is putting a clamp light underneath the glass which turns the drafting table into a light table. A very cool idea. I don't personally use a light table so I don't own one but I think it is a clever idea and a great reason to have a glass topped drafting table.

  What I like about the glass top is that it is very easy to clean and maintain. Nothing stains it or sticks to it. A little window cleaner and it always looks like brand new. It has three small drawers built into it. I have erasers in the top drawer, yep, I have a LOT of erasers, all different shapes and sizes.  I have cutting tools such as my box cutter and my exacto knife as well as my art tape in the middle drawer and the bottom drawer is one of my assigned junk drawers. I have no idea whats in there but we all have a junk drawer don't we.

  A really good reason to have a drafting table is this......A drafting table lets you keep the drawing surface at a more vertical angle. Why is this important you ask? because when you draw on a flat surface, such as a table, it is harder to get the proportions of your drawing accurate because your view of your drawing is distorted by the flat angle. A vertical drawing surface allows you to see the drawing at the same, natural  angle that a viewer would be seeing it thereby allowing you to get it drawn correctly.

 Also important................We, as artists, spend hours at a time drawing and stooping over a table will wreck your back, shoulder and neck. A drafting table keeps you upright and your posture correct so less pain. And less pain means you can get more art done.

  So there you have it. My first and foremost, most needed "Must Have" I do have a lot of others too. Lets all welcome in the New Year.   Keep learning and keep creating. I will be back soon with more. Happy New Year everyone!