Another Mailart 365 update.
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Tag Archive for 'watercolor'
I’m still going strong on my mailart365 project. I also signed up for iHanna’s DIY Postcard Swap, so some of these cards are dueling that project.
This is postcard #23 and the list on the back is nicknames I’ve had.
The above postcards were made using the handcarved stamp from the previous post. I made another for the background. These are postcards #20 and #21. Backs read Dream Professions and Things I would change about myself
Postcard #22, 10 Memories from the past 12 months.
#24, Things I always carry with me
#26, 10 responsibilities I have
# 25, Past Jobs I’ve had
Another postcard inspired by Water, Paper and Paint book by Heather Smith Jones. This piece was inspired by project no. 5.
Day 4 Thing-a-Day - I finished my contributing piece for the “Drawing THIS LOVE” project. I found out about this opportunity through Artist Catherine Campbell’s blog post here. Her friends are making a music video and they are releasing each frame as a drawing for someone to color in and send back. Once all the pieces are complete they will put them all together to release the video. AND GUESS WHAT! You can participate too. Just go to their website http://www.drawingthislove.com/ and sign up. The only rules are that you have the make the background blue and it can’t be altered or colored in on the computer. The website has the video to watch, so you can see the animation and hear the song. They’ve also started adding some of the frames into the video and if you are quick enough with the pause button you can see some still frames. It’s very cool.
I hope my piece is acceptable because it seems that most pieces have all been colored with colored pencil, and my background is collaged. I didn’t see anywhere that it indicated you had to use coloring pencil, just that you can’t color it in on the computer. I used old maps and painted them blue, then I tore the maps up into little pieces and glued them back down all jumbled up. Some of them were kind of green, even after painting them blue because the map page was originally yellow, so after everything was glued down, I went back over it with blue pastels. For the face I used watercolors and just kept it very loose.
edit: I just did another. Forgot to mention that you can keep coming back and getting a new frame, once you upload the previous one. The number I just got today was frame 596 and there are over 2000 frames total, so there are plenty of opportunities to participate left.
For this piece I colored the background in blue boxes in crayons, and then went over it in a dark blue. The head was done in dry pastel and colored pencils. I enjoy doing the background better because I have a hard time on the face trying to figure out what is what. Is this still part of his nose? Is his mouth open? Are those teeth or his top lip? Etc.
For a Christmas present to myself I bought a copy of Heather Smith Jones book Water Paper Paint. I’m sure I’ve raved here before about Heather’s artwork, so I was thrilled last year when I found out she was releasing a book. I swooned when the book arrived, because the cover paper has a watercolor-paper-like texture to it. A truly perfect book for this artsy girl who also works for a printing company and loves everything book, paper and ink related.
The book is filled with projects and so I’ve been making myself go through it in order and not skip around. I took Watercolor in college and still use the paints all the time. One of the things I love about Heather’s work is that she uses it like I like to use it - in mixed media. I’m sure almost all of my mailart postcards have watercolor in them, my circle series pieces, etc. I’m having lots of fun so far and really enjoying the book.
Since the projects are like little practices for experimenting with watercolors, I had a great idea to do mine on small postcard pieces of paper and mail them out to friends.
Watercolor tip: Heather suggests taping your paper down and I’ve seen a lot of people do this perfectly fine. But, if you want to soak your paper and stretch it, I suggest the following. When I was college our instructor had us buy Homosote board (which you can find at some hardware stores), soak your paper, then staple it right into the board. The staples and paper release from the board easy and you don’t have to worry about wet paper staying taped down. You can use a hair dryer to dry the paper or wait overnight and the paper dries taught.
A quick spread I did tonight in my little book. A sketchy girl I drew and some grass of course.
Earlier today I was putting together some of my zines to send out in the mail.
They are teensie tiny zines that fit into a matchbox. Part of assembling the zines includes emptying the boxes of all matches into a zip lock bag that I store my matches in. I have LOTS of matches.
Today was yet another bustling day, by the time I got to start on my daily piece I just knew I needed to work on a piece that would be very repetitive. I wanted something that would be meditative to work on. I got the idea to just recreate the same image over and over and over again. I spent some time sketching different ideas out and nothing seemed to be working. I got up to take a break and as soon as I did I thought of all the matches from earlier today. Yes, I wanted to just draw match sticks over and over. But how is that interesting?
What I really wanted to do was just fill an entire page with matches, but it wouldn’t be much of an interesting composition. I started to think about matches, which made me think of fire, which made me think of flame, tada! “Like a moth to the flame” and the piece design was born.
I illustrated the piece in pen and ink, colored it in watercolors, then finished it with smudging black pastel around the edges.
This piece is available in my Etsy shop here.
Day 2 is in the shop!
I got the idea for this while I was at work today. I was SO excited to get home and work on it. I’m looking forward to getting into my studio daily this month :D
This piece is in the same vein as my other grass quote pieces, but this one is created in watercolor and has a vintage paper around the outside. I apologize that the pictures are not wonderful. I can tell this month is going to be a race against the clock, finishing a piece I am satisfied with AND THEN being able to photograph it for the listing before it gets dark.
My friend Joon is also joining in, posting items.
Anyone else? It’s not too late to join in posting daily.
Last weekend I was downstairs looking for something in storage when I found these empty frames I had bought a couple years ago. They are small, cheap, IKEA frames, and I had bought a bunch of them, not knowing how I would use them. Well, all these years later, I see them down there and that was all it took. I think to myself - pencil drawings of posed arms, watercolored and framed with striping ribbon. A lot of my ideas come to me like this “aha! moment” but frequently I’m at a time or place where I can’t immediately drop everything and start working on my idea. Usually I will write and sketch out my idea, but often, by the time I can get to it, the magic is gone and I’ve already moved on to another “aha! moment”. Well, this weekend I was able to drop everything and work on my idea and these were the resulting pieces, the last of which will be used for Found Art Tuesday.
I could really see these pieces being something I would have done intaglio prints of, but I also like the idea of them being individual handmade illustrations. It makes them more precious.
Tomorrow I’ll post more about where I leave the found art piece. Matt thought of the idea, and I’m excited about it.
Earlier today I saw this knit piece on flickr and was inspired. I want to knit a vest using my handspun, I’m excited. And then if you notice the belt in that same piece. The pattern is so perfectly suited (small and repeating) for such a piece. It has inspired me to create the pattern at the top of this post to iron onto fabric. I love fabrics with small repeating patterns. Often I see fabrics with the cutest patterning, but it is so big, so if you cut or sew the fabric down you can’t really see the pattern much anymore. So I decided to design this tree pattern where each tree is less than 1.5″ in size.
On Monday, my sister and I went into the city to the Art Institute to see the Hopper and Homer show. Chris liked Homer and I liked Hopper. I kind of had this impression that Hoppers work was all like Nighthawks, and kind of lonesome and distant, but after seeing this show I don’t think that anymore. His pieces really spoke to me because of their interesting and unusual composition, angles and obvious inspiration from film noir. His work is not sad and lonely, but like a screen capture of a story. That being said, my favorite piece in the show was a very simple painting that actually didn’t really have elements that I listed above. The above painting titled Hodgkin’s House, has a pretty central composition, the content isn’t very dramatic, but just a sweet house with angles of the light and spectacular use of color; greens with splotches of dramatic red flowers.
One last thing: here is a cool tutorial to turn an altoids tin into a tiny water color palette.
