Some pages from my art journal and watercolor paintings

1. Hello everyone! This is what I have been doing lately. I started my first art journal and am having fun playing with it. This is not my “best” work because it is mostly just playing around with ideas. These are mostly on sketch paper in a sketch book and so it’s not the best canvas to work on as the water from the watercolors pretty much makes the pages soggy and wrinkly but that’s ok, it’s all in fun and if something great happens in this book I can replicate it on a canvas if I chose to.

I’m afraid I haven’t been drawing on paper for years!!! I have been using a drawing program on my computer where you draw with a mouse or a tablet and it is quite different than using real paint or pencils and so I have to get used to using these again and especially mixing my colors as there is no need to do this on the computer.

This is a model or actress I found online…didn’t really pay attention to who she was, I just thought her face was pretty and decided to draw her. In pencil, on sketch paper.

 

This little one was so much fun to do….I just started without a plan and no pencil sketching first, just pure watercolor and 5 minutes! I just love how she turned out!!  Watercolor in sketchbook

This is another quick watercolor, 5 or 10 minutes, just wanted pretty colors.

This was sketched with pencil first and then painted with watercolor……I think I’m really starting to like watercolor. I have never painted with them before this year. I think I might have the knack for it and then sometimes I feel like giving it up….I wonder which it will be?? :)

This is Claire Littleton from “LOST”!!!  I painted her hair different as I wanted color in this picture and it turned out half decent…..I put masking tape around the edges and it too long and when I went to take it off, it tore a bit of the paper….oh well, I will know next time…..Watercolor on watercolor paper.

Sometimes you can place weird things in a drawing and it makes it look interesting.



Have a doodly day!!  Sometimes I fill my page with random stuff.


The music dress made with Sharpie markers and colored with watercolor

This is one of my favourites! I love painting apples!   I l,ayered some shiny medium on top so the camera doesn’t photograph as well. This is Gesso on sketch paper, colored with wax crayon and then more gesso and then sanded. I painted the apples with acrylic paint. Love how the background turned out!

I enjoyed doing this one….done in blue ink. Just random things. I really liked how the house and smoke turned out! The glass swan was fun and the glass of water and the faces too.


sharpie markers


Here I wanted to try and draw something and then fit something else in the spaces. Marker and watercolor.

I love this!! This was really fun to do. “I hear music, no one’s singing, no one’s playing, I hear music”. This is actually a song I heard once….but these are all the words I know haha. 
Marker and watercolor in sketchbook


20 black birds, I enjoyed this one. Marker.

 
This is what I do when I get a song stuck in my head….draw it to get it out of my head!!!   I tried to draw it the way I thought the words of the song meant. It sounds like someone has to let go of love for some reason. A love that can never be but they are crying out for them to say something, anything to them.  Pretty sad really.  Marker and watercolor in sketchbook.
One problem that I’ve had with the art journal is I have NO patience to wait until something is dry and therefore make a mess on the other pages…..but I’m working on it! :)

I still have many more pages in my journal but I haven’t finished it yet….My goal is that I will have to be satisfied with every page I make.  I’ve got a long way to go but I am improving as I go along…I have just made some that I love the way they turned out, I just haven’t had a chance to photograph them….I will probably show you some day :) 

Here are some paintings I have made recently

16 x 20 Acrylic painting on canvas
 
My daughter Cara, had asked for a painting for her unborn babies room. She wanted a nautical theme for her room and wanted me to paint something with water and sailboats. So I preceded making this painting and I thought I’d make a boy that would look like something the baby might look like (they are having a boy by the way) sitting on the rock. When I stepped back to view my painting I realized that it looked just like my other grandson Gideon! I was amazed at it and so this painting just had to be sent to Gideon who is 9 years old. . He said that his clothes looked just like his summer clothes except he has sleeves. :)
So I had to make another one for Cara’s baby

This little boy turned out looking  like the baby’s daddy (Which I think the baby will look like)  :)

16 x 20 Acrylic painting on canvas
 
This picture was a bit difficult to do because of all the subtle shadows on the face. I find that shadows are very deceiving in what color they actually are. In this one it was in-between lavender and bluish green. Hard color to mix when you are not used to mixing skin colors! But I eventually got it close enough. Being a perfectionist I see all my mistakes and I am trying to say, ok this is good enough, it’s a painting not a photograph! It’s really hard but my husband is helping me see it through his eyes. When he says it looks really good and he tells me to stop looking at the original photo I can see what he sees.
 
Close up 

This is the picture I looked at for the painting. This pretty young lady is a room mate with my son and his girlfriend. I went there this summer and they wanted me to make them a garden in front of the house and so I did. This lady had a painted rock on the steps that I noticed there and thought it might look good in the garden and so I put it there and then thought I’d ask her if it was ok. I totally forgot to tell her!! Then left for home. Soon after I got home I found out that someone had stolen from the garden!!! They stole this beautiful tree I had planted in there and the painted rock!! Whoever heard of stealing from a garden??? Crazy people!! anyways, this rock had sentimental value to her and so I felt really bad that she had lost her cute little rock. :(  I made her this painting hoping to make up for her rock….hopefully she liked it.





This was really fun to make!! Excuse the glare on the window frame. I learned this new technique of glazing with acrylic paint and I wanted to try it out. This was done out of my head with no sketch first. Totally freehand with paint.

see you later :) 

Merry Christmas and Happy new years to all!!!