Category: watercolor

art, best effort, brushes, digital art, digital art academy, look forward, Painter, paintings, positive, positive energy, time out, watercolor

This is Blog 100

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Japanese Inks

Japanese Inks

I’m so excited.  This is my 100th blog.  I never realized what I was getting into when I started blogging.

I thought I would be the lone blogger picking up a follower here or there.  Then, I found Word Press.  Word Press makes the blogging experience very special.

First, they make it relatively easy to set up your blog with a theme of your choice.  Second, whenever I’ve been stuck, people have been there to help me.

The community of Word Press bloggers blows me away.  Word Press works at bringing us together to share our love of blogging.  I feel like I belong to a special community that is incredibly supportive.

A huge thank you to all the people who follow me.  I never dreamed I would have actual, real followers who were interested in my art AND my health.  You are all special people to me.

As to my health, well, it is what it is.  I’m feeling better the last few days than I have all year.  I continue to be returned to a life.  For that I am grateful.

As to the art in this blog, well this is something different for me.

As you may know, I take classes at the Digital Art Academy (DAA).It was founded by Karen Bonaker, a fabulous artist.  Check out her blog here.  We learn art while using the application Painter.

Starting Saturday, I am taking Japanese Inks from Karen at DAA.

This is a type of art I have studiously ignored all my life.  I have had no interest in it at all.

So, why not broaden my horizon is what I figured.  I’m totally intimidated, of course.  Something new. There is a small part of me saying “you’ll never be able to do this.”  But, I’m happy to report there is a larger part saying “yes, I can!”  This is a huge change for me.  Mrs. Negative had her way with me for a long time.  But I have practiced being positive and loving myself and my art.  I put Mrs. Negative Voice on a time out recently.  I refuse to engage with her on any level.

Interestingly, I am finding that she is becoming less and less by my not engaging and fighting with her.  When she pops up, I lovingly as possible put her on a time out.  Of course, she will try to come back.  I just gently remind her of the time out.

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art, Painter, paintings, watercolor

More Flowers

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Flower & Shapes

Flower & Shapes

Yesterday I did two paintings.  That’s a record for me.  Usually I take days to paint one painting.  I actually finished up one piece that had driven me crazy.  It was another flower piece using Skip Allen’s Flower Maker brush.

I took a break for lunch, and went to my Reader to see what was going on in the blogging world.  The first blog was Skip’s.  He had posted another set of videos on using color effects and brushes using stroke attribute.  Those of you who use Painter know what I’m talking about, probably.  The use of the stroke attribute brush had totally eluded me since I first got Painter.

I watched Skip’s videos and found out that the stroke attribute brush acts exactly the same as layer composition effects, except directly on the paint.  Wow.  I couldn’t wait to get back to my flowers.  The three ovals behind the flowers were totally too dark.  So I used the detail oil brush with stroke attribute on and brought back out the light purples that had originally been there.  Then I worked on some of the other shapes and brought back their gradations.  Then I went to work on the flowers.  They seemed like they needed more white, so I lightened them up.  Then I looked at what I had done and saw they lacked enough color.  So I used Adjust Selected Colors under Effects and brought back the colors, only better.  I used the lasso tool to outline each flower before applying the effect to each of them.  Skip had also talked about this effect in his videos.

For anyone with an interest in Painter, I highly recommend Skip’s You Tube site and his blog.  He is full of information on Painter.

art, digital art, paintings, watercolor

A Watercolor

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Flowers-5

Flowers-5

I have never been interested in doing watercolor paintings, as they are a whole art unto themselves.  But lately, I’ve been drawn to try watercolor.  I have no idea where this has come from.  I’ve never even really liked watercolors.

But, now that I’m paying more attention to them, I see they are really beautiful.  They are delicate and so interesting.  I never know exactly what a brush will do.

Yesterday at Skip Allen Paints, Skip posted ten videos showing him painting a watercolor.  If you use Painter, then you really should check Skip out.  He makes wonderful brushes and videos.  All free.  This, to me, is incredibly generous.  He could be charging a whole lot of money for what he gives away.

Skip just posted a new brush set on his blog.  You can download it here.  They are Flower Brushes.  A set of mostly watercolors including this fabulous brush, that when used with the right kind of paper, will paint flowers.

I’ve had all kinds of fun making papers to use with the flower brush.

So, yesterday, while watching Skip’s videos, I painted along and came up with these purple flowers, which look to be Hydrangea.

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