Currently Browsing: leftover paint 9 articles
Mixed Media Experiments Continue
This dog portrait was my warm up sketch to continue my mixed media experiments. I started with a brush pen sketch from a Sktchy muse reference photo. I used leftover gouache and then the dry media you can see listed on the recto page. I then searched for another photo reference on Sktchy and did […]
Limited Palette From Leftover Paint
At the end of last year I was sketching in a 10 x 10 inch journal I had bound with Strathmore 500 Series Printing Paper. This paper isn’t sized for wet media like watercolor. It’s meant to be printed on. But it was sent to me in large sheets and I thought, “Why not bind […]
Don’t Be Afraid of Messy Studies—What Are You Learning?
Too many of my students in the past have obsessed about perfection in their studies. They worry about their studies being messy, partially complete, and in every other way weak and unconvincing. They are worrying about the wrong thing. The purpose of a study is to try out an idea or approach. To give a […]
Who Says I Don’t Paint Selfies?
Yep this is a selfie of me. I was showing the painting in a Zoom meeting with an art group and I realized it was me—after I realized we no longer had rule of law in the U.S. Oddly it’s one of the first color illustrations I’ve made in the first 3 months of the […]
Fun with Grids and Studies: Or Things to Do with Leftover Paint
You always have time to make tiny sketches. Don’t forget that! Even the tiniest of sketches allows you to work on your observational, paint mixing, and shape comprehension skills. And in my case, fascination with hair and beard styles. Background Events I’m doing the last bit of journal index catch up I had hanging over […]
What Happened with the Excess Stamp Ink from Yesterday’s Post?
Yesterday I showed you what you could do in 15 minutes with some rubber-stamp ink to prepare some background textures in your journal. You’ll remember there was a scrap of watercolor paper I also painted with the leftover ink. (See the bottom right of the above photo.) Here’s a bit of pattern/texture making fun you […]
Quick, Colorful Background Textures for Your Journal Pages
Lately I’ve been discussing keeping your creative flow going even if you only have 15 minutes a day. And I’ve mentioned pre-painting backgrounds. Today I’m walking you through the use of pigmented rubber stamp ink—but you can also use liquid acrylics or acrylic inks. Remember—if you are not going to use wet media on your […]
A Bit of Background Texture Buried Under Some Gouache
This April I was daily considering the hairstyles of the 1910s and 1920s. I was pondering the gravity defying nature of those hairstyles. But I was also totally obscuring the background texture I’d created on this page. Originally I was going to continue a collage series that also consumed my attention in the spring on […]
What Filling a Grid in Our Journals Tells Us
I’ve been sharing a bunch of journal grids lately on the blog. Let’s get right to it—filling a grid in your journal tells you at a glance what is catching your eye in the world. For me, in this grid, it’s obviously noses. Now if you look at one of your grids and you see […]