Life drawing: watercolour and ink

Life drawings in watercolour, pen and ink.

Watercolour croquis

As much as I’ve been enjoying figure and life drawing with charcoal, it’s fun to switch it up and work with different media. So I dug out my watercolour pencils and gave them a go.

At first, I found it rather impractical to work with colour as well shapes and shadows during the 3 or 5 minute life drawing poses. The time it takes to switch colours and dip the brush in water, and the act of holding a bunch of tools in your hand, all add to your attention given the short time. Then I discovered the water brush, and it’s revolutionised painting on the go for me!

Pentel Aquash Water Brush

A water brush has a soft plastic reservoir that can be filled with water. When you squeeze the barrel, water flows into the bristles, which removes the need for a separate water container. It also makes it quick and easy to clean the brush when switching colours or when you’ve finished painting. The barrel is flattened which prevents the brush from rolling off your work surface.

The water brush is fantastic for watercolour sketching and painting on location, life and figure drawing and journaling. Perfect for blending watercolour pencils or applying watercolour, gouache or ink. Highly recommended!

I used a Pentel Aquash Waterbrush for this watercolour life drawing of a 3 minute pose. I predict the water brush will come in handy for portable summer painting!

Seamless Watercolor Patterns from August Empress

If you’re looking for a way to give your blog a new look that reflects your creativity, Jo Klima offers gorgeous, seamless watercolor patterns and blog social buttons along with a ton of other free goodies to spice up your blog.

She’s also put together a collection of useful blog resources with tips, tutorials, textures, patterns, templates and handy WordPress plugins for bloggers.

From web designer Jo Klima of The August Empress & The Darling Tree.

Dry pastel crayons

When your art is your work or when you’re blogging about what you create, the spontaneity is easily lost. You want your clients and buyers to be happy and you want to give your blog visitors a valuable experience. Your art becomes an achievement.

Part of you goes about your day thinking “this would make a good blog post” or “now I know how to solve that detail in the commission I’m working on“. Sometimes you feel you’re producing art and regardless of what mood you’re in, the job is due tomorrow. Even though you love your job, it’s partly become an obligation.

When you put your creative life on display or make a living as an artist, it’s easy to loose sight of creating without intention, just for the sheer joy of it.

A blog or an online portfolio can be a creative outlet in itself and a great way to stay motivated and hold yourself accountable for your creative projects. A way to document your creative journey and to connect with others.

On the other hand, blogging takes a lot of time and puts you on a schedule. You can begin blogging for the comments on your blog, and maybe you start looking for validation from your readers, rather than from within yourself. In a time when we seem more busy documenting our lives than living our lives, it takes deliberation to find a peaceful space that hasn’t got anything to do with other people or how they perceive us. To create a space that has nothing to do even with our own expectations.

A creativity lab. So can you plan to be spontaneous? Write your own permission slip? Can you make room for experiments, happy accidents and non-judgemental creativity? Find time and space to change your mindset?

This autumn I’ve reserved Friday afternoons for spontaneous explorations and I promised myself that I wouldn’t display any of the art from these sessions here on my blog. It’s been a process that’s about loosening up, improvising, letting go of expectations, being associative, having fun and allowing art to unfold intuitively. I’ve been working quickly with natural media. Each Friday a new theme and different mediums. The emphasis is on getting into flow rather than stepping back and judging.

I’ve spent time getting messy with acrylics, oils, dry pastels, clay, oil pastels, watercolours, textiles, charcoal and gouache. Working on different types of canvases such as cardboard, different kinds of paper, wood panel and canvas. I’ll admit that after the first two sessions I felt disappointed with the “result”, even though the whole point was to let go of expectations, but after that it’s been much easier to let go, have fun and step into the freedom of playful creating.

Paintbrushes

Palette with acrylics: earth tones

December. Walnuts, swedes, cranberries, turnips, pomegranates and passionfruit.

This year the Winter Solstice occurs on December 21. This is the shortest day or longest night of the year and I think it’s fascinating that although the interpretation of Winter Solstice has varied from culture to culture, most cultures in the world and throughout the times, celebrated it as a turning point and have held a recognition of rebirth, involving holidays, festivals, gatherings, rituals or other celebrations around this time. And still do.

Blue Branches is inspired by my longing for light during the dark winter months. The crisp blue quality that is specific to blue winter’s skies in the north and the beautiful twilight blue hour or l’heure bleue, with its intense blues. I’ve been documenting the process of how this image was created in my Creative Minutes project.

This desktop picture is a perfect match for the collection of Luminous Blue Folder Icons and as usual the download includes fullscreen, widescreen and iPhone versions.

< — Save this wallpaper to your computer.

Blue Branches

I’ve continued my studies of the sky and trees that I worked on last Thursday and yesterday, and something happened with theses shades of blue that I’m very happy with! This is IT! And I’m going to make a wallpaper and a calendar for December with this design. So keep a lookout for the new desktop art!

Today I’ve been experimenting with layers. Trees. Silhouettes. Winter. Paint. Bare branches. Photography.

Shades of brown and a blue. A watercolour sky. A crisp and cold winters day.

Dreamboard. Full Frost Moon. November 2009.

This dreamboard didn’t turn out as I had planned it, not at all. And here I thought I had clear idea for what I wanted to bring into November! Since I’ve been spending my autumn expanding, following my heart, being in my creative process, participating in projects, resetting my internal compass, getting to know new friends and connecting with old ones, I felt it was time to, consolidate. To retreat to my home, to prepare for the holidays, find peace, bring beauty to my home, do yoga and sort out drawers. That is what my dreamboard was supposed to be about, but it took a direction of its own.

What I see is a dreamboard that’s about giving my creativity wings! Finding creative freedom. And a dreamboard strongly influenced by the bright colours of the autumn leaves, that bring me so much joy and inspiration!

For those of you who feel inspired by this dreamboard, I created Satsuma Sky, a desktop wallpaper and calendar for November with this motif. I hope you enjoy it!