Posts Tagged ‘watercolor’
Thursday, May 13th, 2010
The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is, “Fearless.” It reminded me of a series of images I’ve done over the years that I continue to revamp, because I like the visuals but haven’t found the right story yet. The images below are from the summer of 2007. There’s a more recent version, but I like this one better. There are also older versions, but I couldn’t find them in time for this post.
Here is, “Fearless Mouse” (a.k.a. Circus Mouse, Adventure Mouse, etc.)
A distant relative of the Hickory, Dickory, Dock mouse.
What time is it Ms. Mouse? It’s time to be brave …
This elephant isn't scared of a tiny mouse!
…and slide down the elephant’s trunk! Then it’s off to the Big Top, sporting her top hat and tails, because Ms. Mouse is FEARLESS! Only a fearless mouse would dare to …
They fly though the air with the greatest of ease!
… perform with two daring young sheep on the flying trapeze! After a long night at the circus, Ms. Mouse likes to go back to her tent and relax.
Bath time is better with bubbles.
She slides into a nice warm bubble bath and relives her adventures, while planning for more tomorrow.
Update: After posting this late last night (actually early morning), I had a brainstorm about where and how this might work! It won’t star the mouse, but she’ll still be running around the circus. 
I scribbled my ideas down and put them away for when I’m done with my zombie novel and chicken graphic novel projects. I love when solutions suddenly present themselves after years of not quite working out!
Tags: art, circus, if, illustration friday, mice, mouse, my art, painting, picture books, portfolio, process, time, watercolor
Posted in art, children's books, fun stuff | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010
It’s easy to get attached to a story or a painting when you like one tiny part of it, even if the rest of it is horrible. Sometimes it’s best to keep the good parts and jettison the awful bits.
For writing, consider keeping a file with good lines and scenes that are available to use in a future story. If you want to keep the original, you can, but pull out the good lines so that you can find them if you have an idea how to make it work, or how to use them in a different story.
For art, if it’s so awful that you want to rip it up (we’ve all been there), consider cutting out the part you like before you rip up the rest of it. You never know when you might be able to use that image again, or if it will spark an idea for a new painting or a graphic novel.
Here are two of my latest saves (from when I went through old art files and tossed the scary pictures):
Seagull Soaring
I really love this seagull because he’s the best seagull I’ve ever painted and because he reminds me of the beach. Some day I might find a story or painting to put him in, or I’ll just continue to enjoy this little bit that I saved from an awful painting.
Cozy Little House
I liked this house too much to get rid of it. You can probably tell from the colors that the painting turned out really dark, or at least the rest of it did. This little detail was light enough to save. Maybe someone that lives at this house will go to the beach to visit the seagull some day.
Remember to save your favorite bits when you kill your awful stories and pictures. Even if they never make it into another story or picture, at least they can still make you smile
Tags: art, my art, painting, process, watercolor, writing
Posted in art, children's books, fun stuff, writing | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010
Last year I did a couple of butterfly paintings that were inspired by my trip to a butterfly exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, and my new friend (a Paper Kite butterfly), as seen here:
Paper Kite Butterfly
This is what I wrote about my new butterfly friend last year (on my old blog):
“I’ve seen butterflies and I’ve even been to a butterfly exhibit before, but this time was different. I made a friend! They released new butterflies into the exhibit while we were there, and this little one flew right to my hand, crawled on top of my camera (which made it hard to take pictures – Paul took the one above). She stayed with me until we were ready to leave, when they coaxed her onto a leaf.”
Here’s the first painting I did, obviously inspired by the Paper Kite Butterfly:
Heart Butterfly
We saw so many cool butterflies, but none of them were exactly like the next group I painted (which were inspired by the butterflies at the exhibit, and a tattoo I saw on a girl sitting across from me on the subway):
Butterfly Swirls
When I saw that the prompt for Illustration Friday this week is “cocoon,” I started to wonder what the cocoons of my painted butterflies would look like. Here’s what I came up with:
Cocoons for my painted butterflies.
Sometimes it’s fun to give new life to old ideas!
Tags: acrylic, art, butterflies, digital, fun, if, illustration friday, my art, process, watercolor
Posted in art, fun stuff | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
Do you ever have one of those sunny days that just feels like rain? Or a day where you should feel happy but you’re a bit sad? Today was like that on both counts, so I dug out one of my old paintings (from 2003). It fits how I feel and how the weather is today:
Wet Cows
The colors are happy but the cows look wet (probably because I started the picture with watercolor crayons and then held it out in the rain). I’m keeping my fingers crossed that tomorrow will be a sunny and happy kind of day! If it’s not, maybe I’ll paint another picture. Art usually cheers me up
Update: I looked outside right after I posted this and it’s just starting to rain! See, I knew it felt like rain today.
Tags: art, cows, my art, painting, process, watercolor
Posted in art | 1 Comment »
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
I’ve been painting tiny pictures lately (see the elephant here and the bunnies here), in order to fit painting for fun into my schedule. My third tiny painting was a girl blowing a bubble with her bubblegum. I broke out my watercolors and colored pencils and painted a picture so horrible that I had to rip it up. Seriously. All it takes to ruin a small watercolor painting is a couple of misplaced brush strokes. However, I still liked the sketch, so I made the bubblegum girl into a digital illustration. The image is 2″ x 2″ like the paintings.
Bubblegum Girl
I like how she turned out, but I still wanted to paint something. A picture of a cow blowing a bubblegum bubble seemed like a fun take on the original, and worked out well, because it fits several art prompts all at once (see list below the picture). I used watercolor and colored pencil to make the image. I’m happy with the way both pictures turned out, but I have to say, the more I look at them, the weirder they look. Of course, if you looked at a photograph showing a side view of someone blowing a bubblegum bubble, that would probably look weird after a while, too.
Bubblegum Cow
The CBIG prompt this month is fantasy – a cow blowing bubblegum bubbles is definitely fantasy! Bubblegum Girl also works for fantasy. She wants to blow the biggest bubble ever and win the national bubblegum bubble blowing contest (which they actually have – I saw it on TV a couple of years ago).
The Watercolor Wednesdays prompt for last week was to create a greeting card image for a child – the bubblegum sort of looks like a speech balloon, where the cow could say, “Happy Birthday!” Bubblegum Girl also works for this week’s prompt, to illustrate a favorite toy or game … not that gum qualifies as a toy, but trying to blow the biggest bubble could be a game, so I think that counts (or at least it works for me – I went to art school; I can justify anything).
The Illustration Friday prompt this week is brave – that cow is really brave to be blowing bubblegum bubbles. What if it pops and goes all over her face? Bubblegum Girl also works for brave. She knows what will happen if the bubble as big as her head pops!
Are tiny paintings the next big thing? Maybe not, but I’m having fun with them
Tags: art, bubblegum, cbig, cows, digital, fun, girl, illustration friday, kids, my art, process, watercolor, watercolor wednesdays
Posted in art, fun stuff | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
The Watercolor Wednesdays prompt for this week was to create a child or animal character. When I sat down to paint, this is who showed up.
Happy Puppy!
Does he look familiar? I think he looks a lot like the puppy I did for the Frankenstein prompt and the Halloween character prompt and maybe a little like this puppy too. They are all supposed to be the same kind of dog, so maybe they’re different puppies from the same litter.
The prompt for last week was Wild Thing. Originally I was going to do an image of the characters from the book/movie, but then I decided to do something slightly different in the style of Maurice Sendak. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to complete this painting, and honestly I could have spent another week or so on it to make it look the way I wanted it to look. Since I have other projects that I need to get done, I cut a few corners to finish the painting. There are parts I really like and parts I wish I could have spent the time to do right. I think I’ll be using some of the techniques and the palette in future paintings to see what happens. So, here’s my wild (chicken) thing painting.
Wild Chicken Thing and Max
Tags: art, chickens, dogs, my art, painting, watercolor, watercolor wednesdays
Posted in art | 12 Comments »
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
The prompt this week for Watercolor Wednesdays is your favorite Halloween character. I decided to do a favorite character that I like to draw. I love drawing simple ghosts like these from last week, but for this prompt I decided to do a mummy, which is also fun. This is a more traditional mummy than the ones I usually do, so I played with texture in the background and added the little dog.
Oh No!
Tags: art, Halloween, mummy, my art, painting, watercolor, watercolor wednesdays
Posted in art | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
The Watercolor Wednesdays prompt this week was a Halloween class party. I painted this one with cut up sponges (except the vampire). I painted the vampire with brushes to set him apart from the rest of the class. I thought the texture would be fun, and it is, except that the painting was too small (8.5 x 11) or the sponges were too big to make it look the way I wanted it to. Still, it’s something I might play around with again in the future, or use brushes to try to re-create the texture.
Eddie was out sick the day Ms. MacDonald’s class decided to dress up as farm animals for the class party. Everyone forgot to tell Eddie when he came back.
Ms. MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
The chicken costume is my favorite.
Tags: art, chickens, cows, farm animals, Halloween, kids, my art, painting, school, watercolor, watercolor wednesdays
Posted in art | 4 Comments »
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
The prompt for Watercolor Wednesdays this week is: The Colors of Fall (an outdoor scene with children).
Fall Kids / Fall Colors
This is another attempt at layering. I like how it turned out, but I think I’ll do a bit more planning next time. Want to see how I got to the finished painting? Scroll down to see the other stages.
Yellow layer
browns and skin tones added
Orange!
blues and reds
The final step was to layer in all the greens, then add details with markers, to get the painting at the beginning of the post.
Tags: art, fall leaves, my art, painting, watercolor, watercolor wednesdays
Posted in art | 7 Comments »
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
Here’s my quick pencil and watercolor pencil painting for Illustration Friday this week.
Flying is the best thing about being a ghost.
Haunted Flight
Tags: art, ghosts, if, illustration friday, my art, painting, watercolor
Posted in art | 6 Comments »
