• An open sketchbook with drawings of leaves and still life studies, pens and pencils are piles ontop of the right page
    Sketchbooks,  Traditional Painting

    Sketchbook experiments: watercolor, colored pencil, and metallic paint

    Well, of all the days I was sure I might skip out on painting or posting to my blog, today was it. I almost skipped online dance class — just feeling tired and anxious. I’m also stressed about the weather disasters happening around the country (and hoping things get better for so many people suffering this week). I decided that I wouldn’t try to make progress on my painting from yesterday, but instead would experiment and try stuff out to better prepare for working on it tomorrow.

  • A painting of a black woman in a chemise and a sketchbook page of skintones swatched from watercolor mixes
    Figure Drawing,  Sketchbooks,  Traditional Painting

    Watercolor Skin Tone Practice

    I swatched several different skin tone blends before painting in the figure of my current work in progress, hoping I wouldn’t make the skin too blotchy, as seems the case with most of my watercolor skin tone efforts. Alas… I still overworked the paint and it’s still blotchy. I think I keep trying to treat watercolor like digital painting, and then I push too far and overwork it. Blah. More blending practice is necessary!

  • A watercolor painting of a woman in a chemise, standing in front of a wall with green patterend wallpaper
    Sketchbooks,  Traditional Painting

    Adding a Background (at the last minute)

    Well, I was hoping I’d be further along with this painting, but I became quite distracted with painting a soothing pattern in the background. I didn’t originally plan this sketch/painting to have a background – it was more about studying cloth folds – but I decided to go for it. In my mind, the character was standing in the palace of Versailles in a chemise*. So it wasn’t so much picking a background at random, in as much as it was trying to feel what would be around the character I had in mind. I also decided to make her expression a bit less melancholy.

  • A digital collage with two traditional drawings and two digital paintings with the text Finishing WIPs!
    Digital Painting,  Drawing,  Sketchbooks

    Finishing WIPs!

    I had two works in progress hanging out there from this week – the sunset clouds digital painting (from Thursday’s post) and then the current sketchbook page (from yesterday). Even if I’m not practicing new ideas, I’m glad I used some time today to finish both of these up. It’s satisfying to consider drawings or paintings finished before moving on to a different study. No nagging lose threads!

  • A collage of three paintings: the first a mermaid with purple hair and a red flowing dress top, the second silhouettes of female mermaid figures, and the third a portrait of a blue-skinned mermaid with flowing pink hair
    Drawing,  Traditional Painting

    Mermaid Wanderings

    Yay, watercolor paintings! These mermaid pieces are from October of last year – again trying to catch up on my 2020 art sharing. I’m happy with how flow-y the hair turned out on all three pieces. I felt extremely rusty with using watercolors, and the background of vague seaweed shadows on the first painting was…ugh. Still, even feeling rusty, there are things I can find things I like about the first painting: the light and shadow on the tail and the jewelry pattern.

  • Drawing,  Pixel Art,  Traditional Painting

    I just want to watch more of The Magicians

    The full moon was so pretty driving home from Zumba class. While driving back, I wondered: what will I do with my night and how productive will I be after dinner? Honestly, I felt wiped and fired up Netflix after eating; if I could spend my whole night watching The Magicians, I think I would. But I took a break and sketched a little – the water brush is growing on me 🙂