Dark Night of the Artistic Soul

 Every so often I share some personal aspect of my relationship with art and creativity; questioning my direction; why am doing what I'm doing. This morning it's why do I bother? The past year and a half, almost has been difficult for me. I've been working and working to relearn many media. Right now I'm working on watercolor with not much success yet. I've been looking back at my videos and decided most of them were mediocre. Not the videos. The art. I've always thought of myself as a good artist, Not great. Not very good. But good. Right now I just don't know why I'm wasting my time and oh so much money to create what no one want to pay for. Oh many folks are happy to take my paintings and drawings for free, but few, a special few actually believe in me and I am so grateful. I take my commisstions seriously, actually stopping and restarting two and three times until its as good as I can make it. 

I've been doing some work on money. My relationship with money and my familial relationship and memes about money. I heard them all and they dwell within the recesses of my mind. And those memes about starving  artists and needing a day job are the worst. That one comes from society.

Well. I'm still working to master  watercolor. But this time I'm working on landscapes wet on wet. It's all about pigment flowing in water creating images. It's about letting the water determine the image. And, it's my intention to continue sharing my progress with watercolor on YouTube so stay tuned. Watercolor is the only medium I didn't study in college. 

And oh the epiphany! It doesn't matter if I achieve major recognition as an artist. It matters that I continue to teach art at the library and on YouTube. And any other venue that presents itself to me. 

So, stay tuned. I have a video out now on watercolor, mentioned in my last post and one coming up on loose watercolor of a jelly fish using a bit of ink. 

I will continue to improve my first love, drawing, by working on portraits but they won't be taped. Maybe later, but not now. I somehow just feel I need to keep those to myself.

Way back in the day, when I had finished my first year of college, money was an issue so I opted to leave college and gonto trade school and become a lab tech. While I still drew, from that time on, art took a backseat. The medical work didn't last. And well, my employment history is vast. Often I wonder what path I would have taken with my art if I had stayed in college the first time instead of waiting 12 years to return. Oh well. 

Thanks for reading.

Great watercolor experiment no. 2

 In my second great watercolor experiment i thought I would use watercolor paint to glaze over a water soluble graphite drawing.

This is tge result. The transparent watercolor paints didn't cover the graphite as watercolor pencils do. So...

..I used Caran D'Ache water color pencils (scarlet, raw umber and aubergine)  to cover the graphite. It worked. 

Click on the image below to watch this full length (1 hour and 26 minute) video.

 

Life Happens

 It's been 3 weeks since my last post and in that time I've been working with watercolor again. It's the one medium that I just couldn't reclaim after Covid 19 and I just gave up on it but I'm trying again. I've a taken a new direction in sharing. My viewers will get to watch me relearn the artwork of watercolor painting. This is my first project. 

The composition and color are good but thevtechnique is, well, stiff. In this piece I'm using the paint as i would acrylic paint which really doesn't work but which, for me, was a necessary step. 

In the meantime my time has been eaten up by stress. My older sister broke a hip a month ago and although she's in rehab, I find myself too tired and distracted to experiment with watercolor or even scribble. So I stress about that. It's 2:42AM and I'm blogging because her Chihuahua needed to go out. He a bit senile.  Oh and there is thevsay job. I have to conscious for that. I'm a librarian and I do need a clear head but I find myself distracted by thoughts of watercolor and paints and paper. I think about dropping paint into puddles of water and watching it spread out onto the paper. I've managed a bit but of experimentation but just a bit. 

I'm just going to have to make an art schedule and get to it. I know once I sit down in front of my work table I'll get lost in watching how the medium flows; how the colors blend without effort; how the transparent paints are lost in the opaque hues. 

I must try to sleep.  Thanks for reading. 

Creating with Sharpie Creative Acrylic Markers

 Laste week I bought the Sharpie Creative Acrylic markers and the shared them with you and today I have published my YouTube Video. Just click on the image of my painting to see it. It's only19 and a few seconds long.

Next up, ways to apply these acrylic markers. 

See you then!

On to the next new thing

 

 I went to Michaels to pick up two black 7x10 black mixed media pads. I bought a white one as well. But I was stopped short by all of the markers. Watercolor, alcohol and acrylic. Markers I HD used and stopped using and given away. This time I stopped to take a closer look at Sharpie's Creative Markers. I bought a 12 pen bullet tip and a 12 pen brush tip. I unboxed them but I have yet to create anything. I just hadn't figured out the subject and then I got the idea that I should create a cartoon series  but I couldn't decide on anything. 

This morning I made a vlog for my channel speaking with my very possibly nonexistent audience and figured it out. My weekly cartoon post will have to do with a humorous look at astrology. I've recently returned to a limited study is astrology a d realized this morning How much there is to share with some humor. Click HERE to see it. It's 15 minutes long.

By the way, I'm still working on the Giraffe video. 

It's time to finish my Giraffe Tutorial

 Eight months ago I completed a beautiful portrait of a Giraffe. One of my nieces had gone to Uganda and brought back lots of photos for me. I loved them and I've created a few wildlife drawings from them. This particular project took about 2 1/2 hours but in creating the video I shorted it to 13 minutes. I've wanted to create this as a full time tutorial but I kept putting it aside until yesterday. I created a base file with all of the video. Now I have to edit and edit I will. 

I love this drawing. Resting on her neck is an Ox Pecker probably feeding on fleas. Many birds live with an on many animals in a wonderfully symbiotic relationship. Just click on the image to see the 13 minute timelapse version. Next week I will be presenting the full length tutorial. Oh yes! That's what I meant to tell you. For all those who read my blog and watch my YouTube videos I want to let you know that I am now creating full length tutorials only. There will be shorts but I'm sharing my work in it's entirety. I might speed up a spot here and there but as my my last tutorial, Wren in Graphite Pencil, all my videos will be full length tutorials. I hope your'll watch all or most but really alot of my video when it comes out.

Thanks!

Back to Graphite

 

 I just finished this protrait of a Wren in graphite on drawing paper. I like it. The sweet bird took me about an hour land a half to complete. I'm not to fond of the photo. If I offer it on Threadless, I'll take it again with better lighting. 

I did enjoy the process and look forward to more works in graphite. Not sure of the next project. It's either a pride of lions in a tree or another family snapshop. I find I enjoy Strathmore's 400 series drawing paper. I still have plenty of watercolor paper if I want to use it but I like this paper. This image is  8 x 10 inches. 

I used mechanical pencils for the most part in this rendering along with a #8B Faber Castell Pitt Graphite pencils and a Prismacolor black coloring pencil. Of could monozero erasers played a big part.

Click on the image of the Wren to see the video.

Thanks!