#i feel like a combination of watercolor and gouache would be really fun

[yourbestamericangirlmp3]

i've honestly done more gouache than watercolor in the past and tbh i might try it again if i properly into painting but i really want to learn how to use the transparency of the watercolors and learn the techniques for color before i try gouache again

[hollycircling]

would you consider dropping some tips on how you color? your art always has such a nice feeling to it

Thank you so much, and yes, absolutely! 

So... I have been agonizing over how to answer this question for over a week because I tend to make a lot of my major decisions based on what looks and feels good to me in the moment. It’s sort of hard to explain. Then I started getting philosophical with it (“how does one color? How do I explain aesthetic?”), and I started rambling, and had to cut the answer way, way, way down lol.

But here’s what I can help with right now. I think the most important part of how I color is my tools and what they allow me to do. These are currently my favorite brushes to use: 

From top to bottom, I use Kyle T’s Gouache for just about everything. A lot of my recent pieces are done entirely in that– I love the chunky texture and how the pressure mimics traditional gouache. It’s great for children’s book illustrations, and filling linework, and realistic portraits. She is my soft wife and I love her. 

I practically never use the default hard round. Ignore that. 

The roller brush is another one I use for painting. It was my go-to before KT’s gouache, so you’ll find it a lot in my older work (and as a big texture thing in my current works). The “Sampled Tip” below that one I usually use for children’s book styled illustrations. It’s like a really dense, waxy crayon, so it’s fun for textured lines and details.

I always paint in my own shadows and highlights, but I like to use the soft round if I want to blow the shadow or highlight out. It’s for extra large areas.

And finally my pencil. I use it for sketching as well as linework, if I plan on doing a linework-centric piece. I don’t think there’s much of a difference between the two there… one is probably smoother than the other. 

______________

The reason why I like textured, pressure-sensitive brushes so much is because they’re important to how I paint. When I blend, I don’t use a blender brush or a smudge tool. What I do is layer two colors– lightly– then use the eyedropper to select the color between them and continue painting with it. That’s probably the key to most of my work. I’ve gotten pretty fast at it, so I’m constantly selecting colors from the painting and reusing it throughout my painting. 

I still use the color-wheel to hand-pick what I think will look best, though. This is probably going to be a really frustrating answer, but I choose color palettes based on basic color/lighting theory combined with personal aesthetic preference. It can take some studying (of both theory and other artists’ work). If you’re ever looking for a really great reference on the former subjects, I highly recommend Color and Light by James Gurny. Even if you’re not into watercolor or dinosaurs or realism, the guy is a master at explaining all that different stuff in depth. 

Shape and negative space are also pretty important to me, but that's a whole other thing. And as a side-note, I recommend following more children’s book illustrators. Their work may look simple, but a lot of intention goes into how they use color, shape, space, and texture. 

Also, on texture, I hand-draw most of mine. I love to add little scratches and drops and splashes when the painting is almost over. It's one of my favorite things to do :')

____

Now, the other most important tip:

Once I’m happy with the sketch/linework, and once I’ve laid down the basic colors of my piece, I do a Really Terrible Thing. I become a graphic designer’s worst nightmare and collapse everything onto one layer. 

Then I paint directly on top of it, linework and all.

I do this for a lot of reasons, but mostly because 1) my tiny brain is overwhelmed by the clutter of too many layers, and 2) it forces me to approach a piece as if it was traditional media– a process which I find a lot more comfortable and rewarding. I paint right on top of the base colors, and right on top of the linework, effectively redoing and cleaning up what I already have there. Even if I'm working with a blank background, I'll paint a new blank one on top because it gives the feeling of a more unified piece, if that makes sense.

Basically, I approach my drawings as if I’m using traditional media. I like chunky brushes, utilizing (what I personally think are) interesting color combinations and textures, and smashing everything down onto one page so I can just paint. 

Anyway, please let me know if there’s anything specific you’d like me to go into detail on, any pieces of mine you’d like to know how exactly I went about it, etc etc etc. I’m happy to answer ^^

[mysticsparklewings]

2019 Art Summary!

It's that time again when we all look back on the year we've had and reflect, and then look forward to what's to come in the New Year. This only my second year doing a yearly Art Summary piece (I didn't miss February like I did last year!) but I'm grateful for the tradition now. Looking back, 2019 had a lot going on for me and my art; I started out not that different from how I've been handling my art and myself online for the past couple of years, but as the year went on, I feel like I've done a lot of growing, finding myself, and even though I didn't start off in a terrible place, I think I'm in a much better one now. This really was a year of tremendous personal growth for me, both in art and just in life, and I can only hope that continues through the New Year and beyond. (As sappy as that is to say, I really mean it.) That said, let's look back on 2019 in a little more detail, shall we? January: Birthday Wishes I actually didn't have a ton of options to choose from for this month, as I think I was a little burnt out from the last couple of months in 2018 and giving myself some breathing room.  Still, this Shopkin colored to match my actual birthday cake actually remains one of my favorite mixed media pieces I've done. I don't know why, there's just something I really enjoy about how it turned out, for as simple as it is.  And for the record, I think I will be doing another custom Shopkin drawing for my birthday again this year, but I haven't decided anything beyond that yet. February: Floating Away (+ Time Lapse!) So as I mentioned earlier, on last year's Art Summary I discovered I didn't have any submissions dated in February and I hadn't yet gotten in the habit of documenting completion dates for my artwork, and so I didn't have an artwork to put there that I could definitively say was done in February. This year, however, February was actually one of my busiest months and I had a pretty wide variety to choose from. I ended up going with my little hot air balloon, as while it's a bit different from my normal work, I still think it's really cute and it also represents one of my attempts to start making videos of my artwork...Which I've been too lazy to do since the few attempts I did during this month... But who knows? I have a better camera and slightly larger workspace at my disposal, so perhaps I'll try again and be a little less lazy about that in 2020. March: Once a Killjoy, Always a Killjoy Oh boy, if past-me had only known what was to come later this year! March saw a lot of pieces from me practicing with watercolor and new supplies, but I think my favorite to come out of the month was my annual artwork to honor March 22nd, the anniversary of when My Chemical Romance, my favorite band, broke up. Only this time instead of doing pure fanart, I made myself into a Killjoy for the occasion.  (The design of which needs to be revamped a little because my hair is purple now, but that just means I already have one option for the anniversary this coming year!) And once again, this is a mixed media piece that I look back on very fondly. The concept is fun and the end result looks pretty cool. April: Doodle Moon I leaned pretty heavily into honing my watercolor craft in April, and among those efforts, this one is definitely my favorite. (Even if it doesn't fit on this template very nicely ) This one was a bit of an experiment in branching my traditional and digital art together in a different way, and I still really love how it turned out. Although unfortunately, I've yet to return to this technique, simply because I feel weird a lot of the time about "half finishing" a traditional piece and then making a lot of modifications to it digitally. It feels like cheating or being fake in a way to me. But I think I get that hangover from the concept of editing photos online and then passing them off as real & unedited...in which case it's a personal problem that I just need to deal with on my own. May: Butterfly Babe I didn't have a ton of artwork in May, but what I did have were usually bigger/more involved pieces, and this one is no different. I think 2019 is the year when I really came into owning my love for mixed media (which comes in large part from "I'm not good at x thing with y supply, but I can do x effect with z supply really well!") and this piece is a really great example of that. Once again, still one of my favorites and the scan really doesn't do it just with all the sparkle/metallic accents I incorporated. And I think I want to do more involved almost crafty projects like this more often, but that usually comes down to having the right inspiration to make it happen. June: Bug Girl Funnily enough, June 2019 is now my busiest month of all-time (in the almost 9 years I've been here on dA), and yet I only had one "real" piece of art for the Summary.  This was the month when I really got heavy into making my own Swatch Charts/Swatching Resources, and while some did carry over into July, the bulk of it was posted in June. I have to say, I don't think a ton of other people are using the charts, but I've certainly been getting good use out of them! And if I'm being honest I mostly wanted them for my own personal use anyway.  But for the artwork that you see here, this is another mixed media piece, this time commemorating one of my favorite books I've read this year, How to Make Friends with the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow. The artwork itself had some annoying problems in development, but the result is really beautiful to me, and so I think it was worth it in the end. July: Homemade Mini Sketchbooks! This month is more of a craft project than artwork, but I couldn't help myself as these little sketchbooks I made myself are probably one of my most favorite projects I did in 2019, and these first two spawned many more afterward.  It's funny to me because I've always wanted a way to combine my loves of books and art beyond just illustrating my writing (which isn't always something I feel like doing) and this, while maybe not a perfect solution, is definitely a unique way to do that. Plus, while making each book does take a little while, it is usually a pretty fun process now that I've gotten the better hang of it. These first two books aren't perfect, but they kicked off something I think I'll be sporadically doing for a good while to come. August: Mon Cher It feels like a lot happening this month, despite not having quite as much art as other months this past year. The month started off with the end of our family vacation, and I posted a journal when I got back where you can see that part of the reason this month felt so busy is that this is probably when I had the most new art supplies available to me to test out/play with during the year, including some items that I got at the tail end of July.  Out of the options I had though, this artwork seemed like the best choice to represent this month, as just like in April I leaned pretty heavily into using and practicing with watercolors and painting in general (as I dipped my toes into seriously painting with Acrylics this month too) and this is one of my more ambitious watercolor pieces. As I said when I first posted it, it has its mistakes and growing pains, but I still think it's really lovely. September: Fly By the Moon I was actually surprised, looking back, at how busy September was. My second acrylic painting (this one more in-depth than the first), an array of cute kitty drawings which have sort of become a series now, some personal pieces, and two contest entries. (One of which actually won!) I went with the acrylic painting since I'm still very proud of how it turned out, given that I don't use acrylics terribly often and hardly ever I go for realism (even semi-realism like this painting) either. Plus, this one is a nice memory of the two real luna moths that visited us, and I had to admit that it is just really nice to have a full painting on a canvas to hang up too.  I haven't done much more with acrylic painting yet, but I definitely want to. My main issue is that for me it's hard deciding on a good subject for the way I like to paint that I don't feel like would look equally as good if not better with a different medium. But hopefully, I'll find more excuses to break out the acrylics in 2020. October: Ink Dance Oh boy, what a month this was!  Inktober, new mini-magnets, trying gouache for the first time, and on the very last day the news of the decade (at least for me) that My Chemical Romance is back!  I followed my same principle as the art summary last year where it just doesn't feel fair to pick a favorite Inktober or use the wrap-up picture, so that left me with my gouache pieces or this one that looks more like a normal person's Inktober artwork, and out of my options, this is the one I like best. The gouache paintings aren't bad, I just need more practice and this one has more charm to me. And it's also funny to me that I was so concerned about ending up hating this one for the stippling and yet it turned out to be one of my favorites from this year. November: I will be with You The artwork for this month was pretty much a no-contest. I made this piece as a love letter to My Chemical Romance after the news of their Return, and likewise, I poured my heart and soul into it. It just might be one of my most favorite artworks to date; perhaps even worthy of being a "portfolio piece" on my website. Even more so after the fact now that I've seen the Return concert (albeit over a Livestream and not in person because California is like 2-3,000 miles away from me ). I was pretty busy throughout the month trying to keep up with a prompt challenge from Art Philosophy, but even so, I pushed myself to get this piece done and I'm so glad I did. December: Daises on Strawberry Hill Ah, and here we are at the very last. It's funny, the first half of this month seemed to drag by pretty slowly, but then after the second week things picked up pretty quickly (what with the Return concert and all) and I have to agree with my mom that Christmas went by so fast we almost missed that it happened at all. I don't have as much to show for this month, but that's in large part because I've been taking time off for my mental health and to spend time with and enjoy my family. I'm pretty happy with everything I produced this month, but my Looking for Alaska inspired art is definitely my favorite of the bunch. It's very graphic-design-ish and despite at the time having been done rather quickly and not super precisely, looking at it now it reads very cleanly. It's a little outside my normal art realm, but if anything I think that makes it stronger on its own.  I'm still chipping away at my longer review of the Hulu series I originally made it to talk about (like I said when I posted it, I have a lot of thoughts I want to talk about and not rush through), so I am indeed still planning on finishing and posting those...I just don't know when that'll be, considering I've already got a bit of a content schedule for myself going into the New Year, but eventually! Eventually, it'll be done! Overall, I'm honestly very happy with what I've managed to accomplish this year. Just like last year, I did a lot of experimenting with new supplies and new mediums--this time some I thought I'd never touch--and I hit even more milestones, including my first Daily Deviation in November. I feel like I've grown significantly more as an artist and a person this year though than I did last year. And in many ways, I feel like this year has renewed my confidence in my own skills and work. I'm not much of a "New Years' Resolution" type person, as I think the concept as tied to that particular phrase has been...I'll be generous and say overinflated and mistreated...but some of my Art Goals for 2020 are: Post more consistently/regularly (which I worked on a lot in 2019 too) Be more active & engaged on social media (I've already started working on this a little, but for some reason, this is honestly kind of hard for me as I always debate what's worth sharing online and what isn't ) Promote me and my work/art outlets more (Also something I find hard to do) Keep experimenting (Not really a goal so much as my artistic state of existence but whatever ) This past year has been one heck of a wild ready, but I'm more than ready to see what 2020 has in store for me. Cheers for the New Year ahead! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings Art Summary Template: 2019 Summary of Art Template (Blank) ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[sktchy]

“...let go of expectations and perfection, and just draw”

Meet Roz Stendahl, an artist on Sktchy. In this Q&A she gives some creative wisdom and a peek at her Sktchy profile.

What’s your background?

I’m a graphic designer, illustrator, and book artist. I also teach bookbinding and visual journaling. I started in publishing in editing and production but gradually moved into design and stayed there.

When you’re looking for inspiration on Sktchy, what jumps out at you?

I always stop for interesting beards, fantastical hair, quirky ears surrounded with magical negative space, interesting facial expressions that can’t be held long by live models. Strong lighting which models the forms of the face is also something that will make me stop. Birds and dogs pull my attention, typically for the same sorts of reasons: interesting expressions and negative space.

What’s your medium of choice when you’re creating art?

I work with lots of different media. I love the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen because of its bold lines. I adore gouache because of its opacity and texture. But I also use a wide range of pens in combination with watercolor.

Sometimes I’ll sit down with Sktchy because I want to get out the gouache. I’ll look for an image that speaks to me for that purpose. Other times I’ll just browse in my 1800-plus-image queue (am I the only one with that many images in a queue?) and the image I select dictates which pen and watermedia I use. 

Recently I’ve been testing a bunch of papers, so I try to rotate the materials I’m using on those papers to see whether a particular paper is something I want to keep using. (I write materials reviews on my blog that my students tell me they find helpful.)

What’s one quirk in your creative process?

I don’t know if I’m qualified to say what my quirk is. I suppose it might be that I work really fast. It’s like I’ve got a timer set and I’m trying to find out what I can do in the least amount of time. It’s like keeping your exercise log, only in pictures. I’ll go into the poultry barn at the Minnesota State Fair for three hours and actually have a quota of how many sketches I want to finish. (Finish of course being a somewhat vague term when dealing with live models.)

I’m like that about a lot of things and one might think that it comes from working for myself and my focus on time management to meet deadlines, but I was that way when I was a child. So I think it has more to do with growing up in an environment that was always shifting and a family that was always on the go. It may be that the majority of my sketching has been of live models and they move out of view so you have to work quickly.

Over the years I’ve taken steps to try to slow down (because often that means a path to improvement in some aspect of my work), but those efforts don’t last long. I simply have more fun when I have this sort of internalized speed pressure applied to the activity. It actually feels comfortable to me.

Oh, and when I’m sketching and things are going really well, or really badly, I hum. Off key.

Any words of advice for fellow artists?

I believe in practice, a little bit every day is much more valuable than a big blow out session of painting on the weekend. So I would advise fellow artists to always have their sketching kit with them so that they can sketch when they are out and about.

What are three tips you’d like to share with your fellow Sktchy artists?

I think if people have difficulty finding time to sketch and get their juices flowing, momentum builds momentum. They might need to set aside time to be in the studio—make an appointment; then keep those appointments until it becomes habit.

If the issue holding them back is that they don’t like what they produce so they don’t sit down and produce, I would suggest that they start looking at how they are letting their internal critic call the shots and keep them from working.

I would encourage them to let go of expectations and perfection, and just draw. And then when they are finished, look at their piece and even if it didn’t turn out the way they hoped, that they keep looking at it until they find one piece of the sketch that they really like. It might be that they got the likeness of the face, and that would be huge, but sometimes it’s the little things that go right, a passage of paint, one magical ink line. Look at those bits and appreciate those bits. Because in that way I believe people start to fall in love with their art in a realistic way. They can see value even if only in small areas initially, and that will increase their enjoyment and build their drawing momentum.

Next, select one thing in the sketch that didn’t work out and make a plan on how to fix it—that might simply mean slowing down and paying attention to gesture or contour, but it also might mean taking a watercolor course or reading a color theory book. That’s about identifying a positive action that you can take to change things. This is also about turning off the internal critic that cripples many artists and prevents them from creating.

These two steps actually allow you to view your art realistically in relation to your goals, and see your goals realistically in relation to the steps you take to make them happen.

And the third tip I’d give people is to stop making comparisons, e.g. “So-and-So’s work is fantastic, mine sucks, blah, blah, blah.” There’s no value or point in that. There’s only you and your experience and ability and the paper. What you put there is about where you are right now and the daily practice, the habit of finding at least one thing in your work you enjoy, and the ability to look at your work and make choices about going forward all increase your enjoyment so much that you won’t be able to stop yourself from sketching daily, and so you’ll continue to practice…

If that’s too preachy, I’d simply recommend: work in a series. Series are always great for sparking inspiration and getting us out of dead ends and looking at subjects with fresh eyes. They are also the perfect opportunity to test out new materials and find the ones that speak to us. I think it’s pretty obvious to people who look at my profile page what I love to sketch. I like asymmetry, I love the challenge of rendering hair (which includes beards), feathers, and fur.

What do you love about Sktchy?

I love the wonderful creativity and variety of the Muses. All those wonderful faces, expressions, poses. They all visually call for attention and suggest inspiration. I’m amazed at the great sense of humor so many of them express when they come up with their poses. If you’re an artist who loves faces you simply have to be amazed at what they come up with and so graciously post.

Get the Sktchy iPhone app to join Roz on Sktchy.

[doodlewash]

Being creative was always a part of my life. The first time someone gave me watercolours to play with was in kindergarten and I remember learning to paint a rose back then. This was some decades ago and I think my art has improved a little since then. My name is Lana and I live in Germany. My mother played a huge role in discovering different media and improvement of my art. Back in Soviet Russia, where I was born, she would let me use her artist quality supplies when I could barely walk, gave me her inks and dip pens to try and gave me tons of great advice. She pushed me to become better and learn techniques, but was also my biggest critic.

After going through a pencil and charcoal phase in my teens, I used acrylics and oils a lot. Then, during university, I was so busy with studying, that I barely found time for creative adventures. The more I rushed into art after having my degree in history, philosophy and psychology. Watercolour and inks were my mediums of choice, while I still explore and try other mediums from time to time. Watercolour is what brings me the most joy. I love how expressive it can be and how exact at the same time. It‘s a joy to experience how the pigments flow in water, separate and behave.

The curiosity lead me to exploring watercolours more and trying different brands, papers and combinations. So my journey began. I created a YouTube channel and shared reviews of the paints I tried there as well as on my blog, which I already had. Sharing my experience, process and results is very important for me, as gathering and sharing of knowledge was one of my goals in anything I’ve ever attempted.

A new project was created when I started a database of the paints I purchased and tried, to share the knowledge with others. Also it‘s the place where I share the results of a lightfastness test I do with basically every tube of paint that I can put my hands on. Thus, Sun & Colors was born.

When it comes to paper, I tend to be picky. My favourite is the Fabriano Artistico cold press. It‘s thirsty, but feels smooth when touched by the brush. When it comes to brushes, I try to choose them depending on what I want to achieve. The Da Vinci Casaneo brushes are great when I attempt to paint loosely and without a sketch. The Silver Black Velvet brushes hold a perfect point and are great for exact and detailed work. Both hold lots of water, which is important for me.

​

The Da Vinci Nova series turned out to be great for gouache as well as details in the tiny sizes. Having tried out some brands of watercolours, my favourite is still my custom Schmincke Horadam palette, with some pans of Daniel Smith scattered here and there. The set of White Nights is a close second. The colours seem intensely bright, both brands rewet easily and are just fun to use. Most of all, I like how vivid they are and how much they flow once I touch the brush to the paper.​

My creative process often starts by being inspired by random things. Sometimes it‘s people, situations, things, colours, but most often nature and animals. Endangered species are a recurrent topic in my paintings. So far I‘m not sure if I have a consistent “style”, because it‘s so much fun trying something new and including new techniques into the painting process. In 2018, I attempted Inktober creating 31 ink paintings of endangered species without sketching first. Trying new techniques gives me a feedback about my abilities but also about my process. I was given the advice to stay consistent, it‘s just not what I want to be.

Consistency when it comes to a style feels very limiting to me as it doesn‘t give enough room to experiment. My process is lead by excitement for the medium, curiosity and a little of the feeling of a challenge. “Can I do that?” is a question I ask myself often and it‘s fun to explore whether I really can. Wood turned out to be a fun surface to be painted on using watercolours, of course it needs to be covered with watercolour ground before being worked on. Gouache is another medium that found its way into my collection as well as black watercolour paper.

The creative process is a meditative phase, where I get to relax and experience the world and subject I paint in a way that is unique for me. My full-time job is not very creative and I need the time that I spend with art to ground myself. Right now I‘m staying home due to the corona crisis and lock down so there is plenty of time to paint and go on adventures I don‘t have in real life. Art is a journey full of fun new things and techniques to try out.

My goal is not only to share my passion for art with the world, but also to encourage others to do so no matter if they are beginners or not. The art community I found online is a very passionate, kind and understanding one. The pressure many experience with following a style or using supplies in a certain way seems not as important as finding joy in what you do, express yourself and just have fun in being creative.

Lana (Swetlana Fink) Instagram YouTube Website Sun & Colors 

"Find Joy In What You Do" by Swetlana Fink - #doodlewash #WorldWatercolorGroup #watercolor #watercolour Being creative was always a part of my life. The first time someone gave me watercolours to play with was in kindergarten and I remember learning to paint a rose back then.