Tag Archives: Watercolor

Aug16

Creative Juice #151

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Creative Juice #151

Inspiring stuff:

  • Beautiful fungi.
  • You become more skillful as a result of practice. One watercolorist’s story.
  • Kinetic art made out of paper.
  • Advice you can take even if you’re older than 21. You’re never too late to grow wise.
  • How to write 12 books in 12 months.
  • Helpful resources for the journey called Life.
  • Wish your exercise routine could make you more creative? Think color.
  • Crumpled art.
  • I’ve only seen a few of these, and some of them were hard to watch, but this list of classic movies is noteworthy.
  • I wish I’d seen this article before we remodeled our home. . .
  • This article is from a few years ago, but the reasons to read and suggested books are still compelling.
  • Some sketches from Amsterdam (and links to lots more).
Aug16

In the Meme Time: Stop Holding Back

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Stop holding back

Aug3

ICAD2019 Wrap Up

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The Index-Card-a-Day challenge and World Watercolor Month both ended July 31. Here are my last five cards for the challenges.

I haven’t done a lot of Zentangle recently, and I really miss it, so for Day 57 I painted a background and drew a mandala on it, inspired by this video. Patterns used are thumbprint, ko’oke’o, shattuck, onamato, golven (variation), and birds on a wire. This turned out to be my favorite this week:

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I watched several watercolor tutorials this week, including one on how to paint flowers, the prompt for World Watercolor Month, Day 28, which inspired this card for Day 58:

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Day 59. The World Watercolor Month prompt for Day 29 was Glorious Green, which made me think of leaves:

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For Day 60 I wanted to paint a still life of a bowl of fruit. I looked online for a reference photo, but I got distracted by the picture of the bowl of cereal, so I painted that instead (click on the smaller photos to enlarge):

Day 61’s painting was going to be something else, but it wasn’t turning out the way I’d hoped, so I decided to use it as a background and painted a treble clef over it, loosely relating to the prompt of the day, symphony:

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This year I made 53 small artworks in 61 days. That’s my personal best for the three years I’ve participated in the challenges. Not all of the cards are that great, but that’s to be expected. We learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes. I experimented with some new (for me) techniques, so I am pleased.

Aug2

Creative Juice #149

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Creative Juice #149

Read these wonderful articles, and spend the rest of the weekend creating stuff.

Jul27

ICAD2019: Week 8

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Only five little paintings this week for the Index-Card-a-Day challenge and World Watercolor Month.

Day 50. This one is my favorite this week. The Day 20 prompt for World Watercolor Month was building, so I looked through my Architecture board on Pinterest for a pretty building to paint:

Day 51. The Day 21 prompt for World Watercolor Month was patterns:

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On Day 52 I watched a tutorial:

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Day 53:

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On Day 54 I watched another watercolor pencil tutorial, but I’m not thrilled with my rendition. I did, however, try a new (to me) technique: using the pencils to create a “palette.”

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There are only a few days left for the two challenges. I’ll wrap up next Saturday.

Jul26

Creative Juice #148

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Creative Juice #148

“Beauty is truth; truth beauty.” ~John Keats

  1. It’s hard to love all your colors the same. Favorites emerge. What’s yours?
  2. How a massive sculpture for Burning Man was created.
  3. Award-winning bird photographs.
  4. And even more Audubon photographs.
  5. One watercolorist’s journey.
  6. A visit to the New York Botanical Garden.
  7. For the quilters: a Flying Geese shortcut.
  8. The amazing world of orchids.
  9. Lovely sketches of Phoenix attractions.
  10. Eye-catching suncatchers.
  11. This offer is so good it makes me want to move to an isolated Greek island.
  12. Merging drawing and photography.
Jul20

ICAD2019: Week 7

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In preparing to make make my cards this week (I’m participating in the Index-Card-a-Day challenge and also in World Watercolor Month), I watched lots of watercolor tutorials on YouTube.

For Day 43, I returned to a guest post that appeared on ARHtistic License a few years ago. My attempt at watercolor flower doodles then was so bad I didn’t post it. But I tried again and I think this one is pretty respectable:

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For Day 44, I watched another tree tutorial and came up with this:

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Day 45’s effort is my favorite for the week. It was inspired by another tutorial:

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For Day 46, I chose a picture from Pinterest and painted a simplified version:

And, of course, you knew I’d get around to drawing a unicorn. Day 47 (inspired by The Unicorn in Captivity):

 

The prompt for World Watercolor Month Day 18 was Clouds. Here’s my attempt for ICAD Day 48:

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And the prompt for World Watercolor Month Day 19 was Splashes of Color. Unfortunately, I could not paint what was in my mind’s eye. Mine looks more like Splotches of Color.

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Anyhow, I attempted a couple of things out of my comfort zone. These challenges are about having fun and being intentional about making art. No worries.