So I discovered Vincent van Gogh. I read about his life several times, stared at his art, considered his philosophy, and realised that the great painters were just like any of us, products of their time, with perhaps a little more mind altering substances at hand.
Wattle flowers are a challenge in art. I see them most often either simply little yellow circles or little yellow dots. They are not exactly a flower that screams to be drawn in detail. But as I am somewhat obsessed in finding the beauty in the unnoticed, I’ve found myself a little obsessed with these little yellow balls of fluff.
As a bonus, I started reading one of my watercolour painting books, and encountered the technique of lifting off. The book basically described how you can lift off paint by wetting the dried paint with a brush and then blotting with tissue. When I experimented with acrylic glazing, I wiped the glaze with a cloth before it could dry properly to give it texture. I pondered if I could get an interesting effect using the lifting off technique combined with the scrubbing on the petals in this piece.
I actually managed to do some painting today! I didn’t complete what I started out to do, but I have made good progress and a painting is emerging.
When I came to do the red centres of the flowers (around the yellow eye), I had to switch from watercolour pencil to watercolour paint because as with my pastel sticks, my red watercolour pencils are annoyingly hard and often scratch the surface of the paper. Do any of you ever encounter this problem? I find it very frustrating, to the point I can’t use my reds.
I have to make more of an effort to do artwork every day. I’m finding that I’m blogging every day, but not so much doing the art I want to blog about, so, uh, yeah, I need to rewire my working schedule.
The Creative Every Day challenge has helped me out a lot in the past, but over the last couple of months, I’ve let it slip. I think I need to put a bit more effort in to keep it up (says me at ten past midnight).
So, what have I managed to do this past week?
I don’t have a completed piece for Sunday Sketches this week. What I do have to show you here is a work-in-progress watercolour pencil experiment.
I’m learning. And as I learn, I’m hoping to share what I learn. These are the tools and techniques and other little arty technical thingies that I’m playing with at the moment. I hope they are useful. ( a new series to tie in with my experiments and explorations – today I finished my Wreath Wattle painting and experimented with glazing)
God, this is scary – actually writing it down. Does this mean I actually have to follow up on it? 😀
It is more of a project than a resolution, but it is something that has been floating around in the vast empty space I use for a brain for several years now, and it is something I really should get off my butt and do.
