Weathering The Storm With Art

  In my last post I mentioned riding thru the hurricane and power outtage by catching up on reading and making some art during the daylight hours. One of the things I did was to create two projects for The Fall Fearless and Fly Challenge. My first was zentangle/doodle art which you can see here.

 The second project isn't really a project, really just some practice sketching using the color prompt which is black and white.

  For this flower doodle I used a water soluble marker to sketch on old sketch paper. I then used a waterbrush and went over the lines, also brushing "out" to add shading and soft branches giving it a watercolor effect.
  Here's another example:

  This was sketched on a scrap of 90lb. watercolor paper. The two most important things for this technique to work is to use a water soluble marker in order to get the color to bleed, and to go over it with the waterbrush very lightly or you'll have a smudgy mess and lose all the detail- I know :)

  Now this kind of sketch practice I can handle-no pressure when using just one color. How about trying it in red, or blue? I know I will!

  Of course I had to get into some color next so I opened up my take along journal which I use for waste paint etc. and got to work!

 There was color to start with on the page but I neglected to take a pic until after I added more. I used a credit card to scrape some Golden's Cobalt Teal, Folk Art's Light Green and Violet Pansy acrylic paints over top. Then I made circles over that with my fingers and some white gesso and then some Golden's Paynes Grey Fluid Acrylic. Sorry, again no pic but you'll see it in the next pic.

  This is my completed "Eye of The Storm" page:

  I used a variety of markers and pens and wrote words around and around about Hurricane Sandy and its effects on the NE coast and how I was feeling. The idea for this continuous writing practice came from an exercise in Traci Bautista's book Doodles Unleashed. I know I've said it before but I love this book-it is LOADED with so many techniques and practices!! (in  this post I shared my very first "girlie glam" face painting using techniques from the book.) I finished my storm page with one last word layer using a white correction pen.

  Here's a detail pic of layers and lettering:

 

 

  What a great exercise-that felt so good! Give it a try- let it out on paper-do it with abandon- and you'll see what I mean. And if you do I'd love see what you come up with and your thoughts about the process. I'm linking up to the Fall Fearless and Fly challenge, the Art Journal Everyday challenge , the Paint Party Friday challenge and Show and Tell Saturday #28 at Artists in Blogland.

 

   On a final note: the election is over and whether or not the candidate for president  you voted for here in the US was elected, the most important thing to remember is that we are all in this together and in order for things to improve and change it takes cooperation and support.

 

  Thanks to everyone for your emails, thoughts and prayers regarding the storm and please continue to pray and help those who continue to suffer from the huge losses and devastation.

 

      "Life is not the way it's supposed to be. It's the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference." Anon.