Art Journal

 I don't feel like I've been very artistic the last few months. Not as much as I have been in the past anyway. So I've been trying to get back into the groove with my paints and watercolors. I've been working on my brush lettering and accents lately. I've noticed with my paints and digital art I like to use really bright, bold colors, where as with the watercolors I've been using very soft, pastel colors. The artist loft set I have doesn't seem to have any really bright / bold colors though. :I
Next is to try to get back into creating more digital art. :D
‪#‎artjournal‬ ‪#‎gelliprintjournal‬ ‪#‎gelliprinting‬ ‪#‎painting‬ ‪#‎colorful‬ ‪#‎playful‬ ‪#‎brushpen‬ ‪#‎watercolor‬ ‪#‎pastel‬ ‪#‎bright‬

Peacocks in Love

Something old from 2009. :o A pen drawing colored over with cheap watercolors. Have a sister piece to this I'll share later.

Some more cards

A couple more cards I made for some friends. The caterpillar one was blank on the inside while the other had a cheeky little monkey. ;D

Another Birthday

Here's a card I did last night for a friend's birthday today. Drawn in ink, colored with water colors and colored pencils.

WooHoo! Snow Day!

We had a MAJOR snow storm this weekend, leaving at least 6 or 7 inches (or more!) at our feet. So what does that mean in regards to my artwork? I didn't do it! :D I played in the snow instead. Hey, it was a snow day after all. And once you're out of school, those come far and few between. :) I don't have any snow day pictures to share as the ones I took were fairly boring (since I couldn't take too many pictures with my gloves on) but I do have a few new pieces of art to show you that I created last week. This one started out as just a scrap piece of paper used while figuring out my watercolors, but somehow it turned into a fish.

My mom found me a watercolor dvd that I have been watching and trying to learn from, so to use the terms I have learned so far, I believe this is a wet on dry piece. I really like the wet on wet technique, since it produces the sort of image that I have shown below. (On which I also like to use salt, as you can see by all the white dots.)

I think I'm going to try and make some sort of picture out of this on Adobe, but I haven't decided yet. I'll have to play around with it and see what I can come up with. Also, if you're trying this technique out, be sure not to use too much water, as it will run and crinkle your paper if you're using fairly thin paper. I believe mine here was 90lb., so you may want to get something a bit heavier to start out with.

It's almost spring!

Well, I'm back. :) I've created some new pieces which I hope to scan and post soon, but for now, I thought I would share this little guy. He didn't scan very well since I didn't paint him on watercolor paper, but I'm hoping I can rescan him later and make him look better. I've been drawing a lot of these little hoot owls lately, and for some reason, they make me think of spring.

Lady bug

I may have already posted this some time ago, but I thought I would post it again because I just saw a lady bug. Plus, this seems to be the time of year they invade this area, so it seemed fitting to post it today. :)

Git along little doggies!

Another new pic with my tablet! :) I did this one using the watercolor brushes. I'm amazed at how close it looks to the real thing. It's simply amazing what technology can do, isn't it? :)

A little crabby...

When you're sick, it's easy to let the sickness take over so that little things, no matter what they are, will get on your nerves and make you feel worse, so that when someone asks you something, you angrily snap back at them. Essentially, being sick can make us a little...well, crabby. And since I've been sick this week, I know I've been a bit crabby to everyone, although I do try to apologize if I am. Still, I thought I would post this cute little crabby I made with my tablet so that even though we can all be a bit crabby at times, we can also be nice little crabs as well. :)

Shoo fly, or I'll eat you!

Hey! It's nice to be back on here! I've been so sick and so busy and just so exhausted that I haven't had time to post anything recently. But, the good news is that I was still creating art, so I have some new things to post! :D Here's one I did using my scrapbooking method. Or a cut and paste technique, if you will. :) Can you tell what his tongue is? It's from a party favor. It's the part that curls up and when you blow on it, it inflates and uncurls. That's why it's so shiny. :) That thing was hard to glue down though, since it kept wanting to roll back up! (If you ever use one in your art, be sure to let it stretch and flatten for a day or so to keep it from rolling back on you.)

Also, while I've been away being sick and staying busy, I found some really good, adult water colors. Now, when I say adult, I mean that they're regular watercolors, compared to the Crayola children ones I've been using lately. I just got them last night, so I tried them out before I went to bed, and here's the best that I have come up with so far.

Here's my little ol' doggy.

And here's my little ol' kitty.

I know, I'm already breaking my rule of not posting more than one picture per each post, but since I've been away sick, I figured I'd make up for lost time. :) Hope everyone else is keeping up with their resolutions better than I am. :)

Something a little different

I got a watercolor video over the weekend and was dying to watch it, so I did and I absolutely loved what the artist did with watercolors! So, I thought I would try my hand at some of the techniques she used, although because I'm using very cheap, cheap, cheap watercolors at the moment (since I haven't been to any nearby craft stores recently), the outcome is not as good as hers. But still, I thought I would post some of what I came up with anyway to let you see what I've been up to. :)In this picture I used some varying techniques, just to see how they would turn out. As you can see, it's not great, but I think it would make a great background for a picture, so maybe when I finally get my paint programs installed on my computer for my tablet, I'll be able to put these to good use. :)

On the 8th day of Christmas...

"On the eigth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....eight maids a milking!"

On the 10th day of Christmas...

"On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....ten lords a leaping!"

Brrrrrr!

After a day or so of nice, warm, spring like weather, the temperatures have begun to drop once again. So, I decided to post this picture, since it looks cold to me, and it's getting cold outside once again as well. I'm planning to start working on some projects to go with the 12 days of christmas, since it will be 12 days until Christmas tomorrow. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but hopefully I'll find something fun to blog about each day for it. :)

Process

I love it when illustrators and artists show their process of what they start out with to their finished product, so I thought I would share one of mine. Okay, first here's a rough sketch I did.

And here's the drawing I did in pen and ink that looks a little bit better. :)

And here's the final piece I have ended up with so far.

I colored the picture in with watercolors, and I LOVE the bright colors, but I need to make the girl with the flashlight's shirt a little bit darker since it's blending in with the 'monster' behind her. Still, I think it turned out better than I planned. I'm not sure if it's because I put more time and detail into it or because the watercolors are working out better than my other mediums. I'll have to do some more pictures before I know for sure. :)

Billy goat

Here's what I've been working on over the weekend. Watercolors! :) I did this goat with an ink pen and a black watercolor pencil. I've got tons of watercolor pics and several black and white pics now, so be sure to look for them! :)