Life does get busy at times, but there is always time for art! I'm a tad behind with my swaps but I've finally finished and posted off this art journal page.
The theme is "country" and so I chose to do something that related to the gorgeous Aussie koala and our amazing day and night skies.
In Australia, we have koalas who love the city life as well as those who love the peaceful life of the countryside. I was inspired by a painting I saw in Pinterest ages ago called 'Night and Day' by an unknown artist.
My painting was created using Winsor & Newton watercolour paints and Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils with highlights using the Chameleon's black detailer pen. You can recreate this painting using any paints and pencils you have. At the end of this blog post I've added a few links of my favourites.
When I first went to write this blog post I was going to just say watercolours, but then I often get asked what brand and type, so there you go :)
The paper in this journal is regular art paper so not the best for water but as long as you don't go overboard with smooshing the paper while its wet, its ok.
I started with lemon yellow and dashes of red, then more yellow... then remembered to get that groovy texture that I love about watercolours, I must let it dry before adding more. So I moved over to the other page and used a sky blue and Prussian blue with splatters of Indigo. Then left it alone while I made a coffee.. that's the hardest part of watercolours - the waiting till it dries!
With the hot air gun in a cupboard somewhere (that safe place!), I used the hairdryer with the diffuser attachment and blasted the pages until they were dry. Only took a couple of minutes :)
After the backgrounds were dry, I added a bit more blue, indigo, yellow and red with splatters of water to break up the colours.
The next step was sketching out the tree. I used the black watercolour pencil for this and just kept adding branches and leaves until I felt it was finished... then added some more :)
The night time koala is sketched in grey pencil along with indigo, black and white. His nose and eyes were drawn with the Chameleon Pen. The moon was simply an arc of water from my aquabrush (waterbrush), pressing down with paper towel and repeating this process 3 or 4 times until I had a moon showing in the sky. After it was dry, I added a feint line with an indigo pencil to give it a bit of definition.
Sunset, just before the koala wakes for his evening stroll around his territory. The sun I actually left as a white spot. I thought of adding more colour to it afterwards but left it alone. The grass is simply the black and indigo pencils flicked about at various lengths - totally random.
The final part of this painting are my wording, the birds and adding a dash of water using my aquabrush to the tree trunk and grass, smoothing out the pencil marks.
Ta da! My painting is finished :) I actually really like this one. Its not often I like my own art so its a surprise when I do. Luckily art doesn't have to be realistic or that koala would starve - koalas are very fussy about what type of eucalypt leaves they eat.
If you have a go but get stuck or need help finding supplies, sing out anytime. I'm here to help :)
Thanks so much for visiting and reading my blog. I hope it makes you smile and inspires you to make time for art.
Happy Creative Day!
:)
Jenny
fyi ... Products used or are equivalent to what I've used are...
- Watercolour Pencils
- Paints and Paint Brushes
- Pens and Markers
Art Journaling Around Australia - Country
Life does get busy at times, but there is always time for art! I'm a tad behind with my swaps but I've finally finished and posted off this art journal page.
The theme is "country" and so I chose to do something that related to the gorgeous Aussie koala and our amazing day and night skies.
In Australia, we have koalas who love the city life as well as those who love the peaceful life of the countryside. I was inspired by a painting I saw in Pinterest ages ago called 'Night and Day' by an unknown artist.
My painting was created using Winsor & Newton watercolour paints and Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils with highlights using the Chameleon's black detailer pen. You can recreate this painting using any paints and pencils you have. At the end of this blog post I've added a few links of my favourites.
When I first went to write this blog post I was going to just say watercolours, but then I often get asked what brand and type, so there you go :)
The paper in this journal is regular art paper so not the best for water but as long as you don't go overboard with smooshing the paper while its wet, its ok.
I started with lemon yellow and dashes of red, then more yellow... then remembered to get that groovy texture that I love about watercolours, I must let it dry before adding more. So I moved over to the other page and used a sky blue and Prussian blue with splatters of Indigo. Then left it alone while I made a coffee.. that's the hardest part of watercolours - the waiting till it dries!
With the hot air gun in a cupboard somewhere (that safe place!), I used the hairdryer with the diffuser attachment and blasted the pages until they were dry. Only took a couple of minutes :)
After the backgrounds were dry, I added a bit more blue, indigo, yellow and red with splatters of water to break up the colours.
The next step was sketching out the tree. I used the black watercolour pencil for this and just kept adding branches and leaves until I felt it was finished... then added some more :)
The night time koala is sketched in grey pencil along with indigo, black and white. His nose and eyes were drawn with the Chameleon Pen. The moon was simply an arc of water from my aquabrush (waterbrush), pressing down with paper towel and repeating this process 3 or 4 times until I had a moon showing in the sky. After it was dry, I added a feint line with an indigo pencil to give it a bit of definition.
Sunset, just before the koala wakes for his evening stroll around his territory. The sun I actually left as a white spot. I thought of adding more colour to it afterwards but left it alone. The grass is simply the black and indigo pencils flicked about at various lengths - totally random.
The final part of this painting are my wording, the birds and adding a dash of water using my aquabrush to the tree trunk and grass, smoothing out the pencil marks.
Ta da! My painting is finished :) I actually really like this one. Its not often I like my own art so its a surprise when I do. Luckily art doesn't have to be realistic or that koala would starve - koalas are very fussy about what type of eucalypt leaves they eat.
If you have a go but get stuck or need help finding supplies, sing out anytime. I'm here to help :)
Thanks so much for visiting and reading my blog. I hope it makes you smile and inspires you to make time for art.
Happy Creative Day!
:)
Jenny
fyi ... Products used or are equivalent to what I've used are...
- Watercolour Pencils
- Paints and Paint Brushes
- Pens and Markers