Quick Christmassy mountain trees, Schmincke paint, Pentalic watercolor journal
Christmas Trees
Tag: trees
More Reflected Trees 3/24/18
When I posted the Reflected Trees I’d done from the tutorial on the youtube channel “maremi smallart,” I rejected my first attempt halfway through. Yesterday I completed it and actually liked it pretty well… so now I know not to throw away attempts I don’t like… I may be able to rework them anyway!
(See? They both look fine)
Reflected Trees (Thurs 3/22/18)
This is from the Youtube channel Maremi SmallArt; the tutorial is called “Reflected Forest For Beginners.” Marta offers cute ideas that are fun and simple, using lots of different media… She says she isn’t a watercolorist, but she is naturally creative and has a good eye, and great suggestions. Mostly she reminds me to try, and to have fun.
Day 223 (Fri Aug 11) “Gouache is not for me… neither are coloring books, apparently”
Okay, I realize I haven’t given gouache a fair shake. Or coloring books, for that matter. But I don’t particularly enjoy either. I can think of times when gouache paints would be great… honestly it may really be these pans. No other company that I could find makes gouache in pans, and maybe that’s why… I just don’t like the way they feel. I am not totally giving up on them. I think I’d really like my results if I do a few more things… but I so enjoy the way watercolor paint moves and feels that I think for now I will spend the little art time I have on ink or watercolor, or something I really like laying down on the paper. I’ll come back to gouache later, and I do think sometime I will try some tubes and see if I like those better.
I followed a video by Lisa Marie of Sketching Scarlet on youtube. Her idea. I tried it twice.
PS if you like to paint, and you like coloring books, you may like to try these pans. They actually were really good on the coloring book page and are super vivid. They go on and look like markers to me. Once on the page, you can’t really move the paint around much like you can with watercolor (see the dark green blob between the two fish?) And they layer like some of the alcohol markers do.
Day 140 (Sat 5/20) Deadline Doodles!
11:55pm… I almost missed today’s art! 
Day 135 (Mon 5/15) Look Up.
Playing around with green.
Day 100 (Mon April 10) tree trunks
A watercolor wash, and a few tree trunks. Easy peasy. I just copied another tutorial. I used that Silver mop brush again from the other day for the background today. I do like it. And it doesn’t smell so goat-y today so I think a good rinsing will take care of that. 🙂 I’m so glad I bought this brush. I try to do anything with a very wet wash on this Arches cold press block. Expensive paper, yes, but I’ve decided well worth it for the quality difference, and the blocked pad makes painting washes and wet pictures a pleasure. It is great paper, and doesn’t wrinkle or curl a bit on the block, however wet I get it! Amazon has it for a good price, too, compared with what I’ve found other places!
Day 86: (Monday March 27) watercolor ‘Iraville’ trees and a study in masking fluid
Yuck. Masking fluid is killing me. (It really might be, its smells pretty bad. I don’t know what’s in it) I will need more practice AND I’m going to look into other tools people use to apply this stuff. Meanwhile, I found a fun Iraville tutorial.
Agggh my masking fluid woes! It came out so FAT, not at all dainty and delicate like I attempted. The first picture is what the tree lines looked like initially, the second is after I painted over them a couple of times. (Hers looked so professional and clean. Well, she is a professional, so they should…)
In the end I’m happy with it. Happy enough. But I’m off to research masking fluid applicators.
Day 81:(Wed 3/22) watercolor landscape, colorful tree
Trying some new styles out. Still youtube tutorials. These two are Painting With David. Well, I know the tree is. And I think the landscape is.
Strathmore 400 watercolor journal 5.5×8″. M Graham watercolors. Ultramarine, Sepia, hanse yellow, terra rosa, quinacridone rose. Daniel Smith Sepia. Testing out some sample Craftamo brushes.
Day 54:(Thurs 2/23) watercolor splatter technique
Similar to the splatter technique I used in January for the cherry tree, but you spray water on it after splattering paint everywhere (and I do mean everywhere.) I definitely haven’t mastered this. These are unattractive paintings. BUT… I had fun doing them, and may use this idea in the future.
ThreeSixFiveArt 