Inspired by Strathmore workshop...

Hi Everyone,
It's been a while since I've posted on here! I've been playing around with some mixed media stuff and some watercolors and watching the video workshops Strathmore has put out and have really enjoyed them so far. The first workshop was open in January and the second one opened this month. The first workshop was mixed media and faces called "Doodles Unleashed".  I've forgotten how much fun it is just to doodle and draw stylized faces. I haven't done that since grammar school days, doodling away in my notebooks (and of course getting in trouble for it). 

 I bought one of the Strathmore Visual Journals in mixed media, size 5.5"x8". For the background I first took a large brush and just plopped down some turquoise watercolor. I then mixed turquoise blue watercolor with some blue and violet pearlescent liquid acrylic ink in a spray bottle and sprayed the paper so it has a bit of a sparkle in the light. I took some scraps of lace (I worked in a bridal salon and we have in-house alterations. There's a scrap box with the fabrics they cut off when they hem dresses. So many great pieces of lace!!) and laid it down on the paper and sprayed again so there was a subtle lacy patten. I then drew my girl in pencil and the flowers behind her. I wanted to do all the flowers in just writing (like the one next to her head) but it was getting a bit tedious. I wrote lyrics to Eric Clapton's "Change the World" (just because I love that song and it was playing while I was making this). There is really no special meaning to any of this, just playing and having fun. I enjoyed drawing the birds flying out of the wisps of whatever that is coming out of her hand and playing with her hair with those shades of blue and purple. I really need to draw more faces, it was too much fun :) Other supplies I used were micron pens and Caran D'Ache watercolor crayons.
I also played around with drawing some octopus' (octopii?) just because I love drawing them too.  Their arms (legs? tentacles??) are fun to draw and they're just really interesting creatures. 

 This one is more pearlescent liquid acrylic ink, gouache (opaque watercolor) and micron pen outlining the octopus. This was more playing with backgrounds, playing with the acrylic ink. I just love this guy :)

This one I mixed up the background with blues and oranges. I splashed down some golden crimson watercolor and then took that blue mixture I mentioned before and a swirly cardstock template and sprayed it, so it left behind this blue, shimmery pattern, which reminded me of octopus legs (tentacles? arms?) so I went to town with more octopii just doodling and having fun. The little black guys were done with a micron brush pen while the alien octopus with the hat wad just a regular micron pen. The large blue guy is acrylic. The little guy in the top left corner I saw on the internet somewhere and I loved how cute and simple he was so I copied him and the one on the bottom is my own, as well as the one with the top hat. Hope you enjoyed my doodling! :)

Mini's

I recently came across some tiny watercolors I did when I was first teaching myself the medium. 5 1/2 years ago, when my boyfriend and I traveled to Europe (first time for me!) I was so excited and I brought along a bunch of art supplies to sketch and paint the sights. We traveled through London, Paris, Nice in southern France, Rome, and Barcelona. I had bought a large sheet of 300lb weight watercolor paper, nice and thick and cut it into tiny rectangles, about 2x3", some even smaller, to do "mini's". I brought a small, portable watercolor sketch box, (complete with the cutest mini brush where the handle comes apart and is used to cover the bristles when not in use. Coolest idea ever! I even have a regular size watercolor brush like that too, one of my favorites!! Anyway, enough with my art supply loving nerdy-ness...)

I had also brought some pastel pencils, some black micron pens for sketching, pencils, etc...And didn't end up doing a single sketch the entire trip. I also lost the set of pastel pencils somewhere along the way, stupidly enough. We were just so busy trying to see as much as possible, there was never really time for me to sit and sketch. I held on to those mini pieces of watercolor paper though. A few years later, taking a painting class in undergrad, I decided I wanted to learn watercolor. The school didn't have a specific class for watercolors, just "Painting I, Painiting II," etc. So the first watercolors I ever did were 4 little 2"x3" paintings of palm trees by the sea. I forgot all about them until a few days ago, dug them up and put them on display near my computer. 

I then decided to do a few more little mini's just for fun. I found some old flower pics of mine (remember how much I love do draw flowers) and just have a go at it with no prep sketches, just sketch with the paint right on the paper. I even had a few scraps of paper that are ridiculously small, 3/4"x2", and I thought of course, "how cute!!" 

I got the idea for these mini watercolors from my old boss at the art supply store where I used to work (where I acquired the above photographed awesome art supplies). He was a watercolorist and had done little tiny watercolor paintings in art school and sold them. They were really popular and made a bit of money doing them. Since he was also working as a framer, he took scraps of old frame and framed the tiny works he did. He even showed us one he did that he had a little light bulb in it (like one of those Christmas tree lights). What a cool idea!