Currently Browsing: Fabriano Artistico Watercolor Paper 47 articles
Another Grid
Lots of grids lately—something I like to keep coming back to. I’m including this grid, of sketches from Earth’s World Fairgoers, today because it will lead up to something later—a project post I’m taping for the end of the month. My point is to encourage you to look for patterns in your journaling and see […]
Finishing Projects and a Little Bit about International Fake Journal Month
After decades of teaching art and creativity classes the many disguises of the internal critic never surprise me. But one aspect of the internal critic makes me the most sad—the way he pretends to be your buddy and fills you full of ungrounded expectations (for skill level and time to execute); and jollies you along […]
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 […]
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 […]
Go with the Line—And Finish
When you draw directly with ink every mark you make is permanent (or is it? More on that in a moment). If you don’t nail the line positioning, length, and weight (thickness and thinness determined by pressure) it’s decision time—what do you do? I’ve seen a lot of students figuratively and literally throw up their […]
In Context: Collage with Text
In April I painted a lot of background textures in a hand-bound journal I’d made with Fabriano Artistico. I’d taped the pages. Painted the textures. Then over the next week I returned to paint or collage on the backgrounds. This is one of my favorites. I admit I wanted to finish the book and couldn’t […]
Pre-Painted Background for Gouache
Here’s a gouache portrait I painted on a pre-painted background. Briefly, because I’ve discussed it before in depth: Remember if you want to paint with wet media on a textured background you need to use water-resistant media for your background. (Or be happy that you’ll be fighting the pick up of the background as […]
Skin Tones: Sunburnt
Besides freckles I’ve been looking at sunburnt and sun-damaged skin. The same approach I mentioned in Monday’s post applies here—look for the layers. In this case that means look for the damage. But then because I didn’t want to go all the way to dermatological textbook examples so I had to decide when to stop. […]
Skin Tones: Thinking about Freckles
I’ve been exploring skin tones, specifically dealing with freckles. A lot goes on in freckled skin. There is the underlying base color and value, and several intermediate colors which sometimes appear as blotchiness. Then you get to the layer of freckles which can be actually several discrete layers with freckles of different value, color, and […]