It’s A Watercolor Woman

So here I am AGAIN painting a daily face. I do this for awhile, then for some reason I quit. Then all the lessons I learn are forgotten, much of the forward motion I make is lost.☹️

Then I have to get up the courage to start again. I pull out my notes, look at the old portraits, see what I did right and wrong and go forward again.

This time I am working with new watercolor brushes in Procreate 5.0. I have never been impressed by watercolor in Procreate. But these brushes by Max Ulichney ($25!!!!!!) were being spoken of as really wonderful.

I balked at the price. But then went ahead and purchased them at Gumroad.

I really like them a lot! Max outdid himself. So did Procreate with its new brush engine.

So far, I’ve done three of these and they are improving each morning.

A Little Shell

I took this photo with my iPhone 11Pro with a Sandmarc macro lens. I believe it was my Sandmarc. It may have been my new Olloclip macro lens. I got both in December.

I’ve always used the Olloclip lens but got frustrated at having to get a new lens and cover every year when Apple changed the configuration of the iPhone. So I switched to the Sandmarc lens. You keep the lens and just buy a new cover each time Apple changes the iPhone. Well, now Olloclip has done the same thing, finally.

I prefer Olloclip because there are three lenses, 7x, 14x and 21x. So now I have four macro lenses. The Sandmarc lens is about 10x or so.

Breakthrough

This is a painting that I did in a computer app called Rebelle. It is a watercolor app that looks just like real watercolors and acts just like real watercolors. It also has inks, acrylics, markers, pastels and pencils.

Artistically, I’ve been in a real funk for about eight or nine months. I’ve been quite ill all that time and I guess it just took my art abilities away from me. It’s been really frustrating and frightening and depressing.

However, I’m finally feeling better. Not all the way healthy, but better.

As a result, I’ve felt like painting again. And I’ve wanted to paint in this particular app because it makes these fabulous drips. Just like real life drips. It is mesmerizing to sit and put water on the acrylic paint and watch it flow.

So I’m calling this painting Breakthrough because I didn’t think I’d ever make a halfway decent painting ever again that I liked.

Come Fly With Me

This is a painting I recently did in Corel Painter 2019. Painter is an app for the computer. It has just about every type of artistic media you can think of: pens, pencils, oils, watercolor, pastel, crayons, etc. It literally has hundreds of brushes. Over the years, I’ve collected thousands of brushes.

It has a pretty steep learning curve. But there are lots of videos available and classes available.

I did this piece using brushes I made myself. I pretty much only use brushes that I make anymore. I find that after having used Painter for such a long time, I’m very particular about my brushes. I want a brush(es) that’s going to do exactly what I want it to do.

I like getting new brushes from others, but I always will tweak them a bit to suit my needs.

Enjoy!

A Morning In The Park

We live in Seattle. Right in the middle of the city is a lake. The city has made an asphalt trail all the way around the lake for pedestrians and wheeled vehicles or people on wheels. It’s a really lovely place for we city people.

I nabbed this photo the other morning right when no one was around.

Actually Seattle has other lakes, bigger ones around. Also we sit right on Puget Sound which comes in from the Pacific Ocean. This is part of why our area is so beautiful.

Enjoy!

Is This a Spurge?

Seattle has had unseasonably warm weather. In fact, after breaking cold records, we now are breaking warm records. Climate change? I don’t know. There is still a tiny bit of snow on the ground on our street.

This plant I believe, is called a Spurge. It’s hard to tell because there are so many and they all look different. Believe it or not, this is not its flower. It has so many incarnations and each one is incredibly beautiful.

Enjoy your day.