How taking a walk leads to art!

Walking your dog leads to art... especially if your poodle takes a shine to a doodle down the street and their Mama's find out they both make art!

I have loved getting to know Connie, Carly's mama, and she invited me into her studio (you'll have to wait a bit to see that interview) to see where she works. She says she creates in nature, but takes the concept back to her workspace to make.
 Yesterday she invited me to a play date with her art group.

What fun! Want to see what we did?

We all worked on our individual projects at first, Erin made a birthday card, I sewed the beads around my V-day quilt, we had lunch and then I told Connie I was intrigued with her watercolor paintings, and asked if she'd show us her technique.

It's been a minute since I painted on paper. Connie combined the fun of stamps, water soluble markers and brushes, allowing us to use her supplies, while she taught us a new technique. Just look at all the stamps and inks she brought along.

* I learned you need to make a mess first, then make art

It is so much more fun to see the array of stamps and pens spread out on the table, than to have everything in it's case.
We taped a small piece of cardstock to a large piece of same weight cardstock to be used as a test for the images we were going to stamp. We had small brushes and water, some paper toweling and chocolate, good music playing and lots of conversation as well.

Connie started us with swiping ink over a stamp, then after pressing it onto your paper, gently going over the lines with a damp brush. This causes the pigment to migrate and create shadow.
* I learned how to use color in an additive way to layer, deepen, blend to create shadows

People think watercolor is not forgiving but I know one can remove wet pigment with a scrunched up paper towel (see my clouds formed that way) If you don't like something, remove some of it and stamp over the result.

*keep going because it's not over til it's over

Connie says, it's just paper... don't be afraid of waste or mistakes. Just have fun and keep going. Sometimes she puts it aside and comes back later to view it with fresh eyes, and a solution will come to her.
We do that with quilts right?

*have your supplies at hand and organized but available to use

*sharing is good

Connie's handiwork yesterday!

One of my finished pieces

*mix colors, remember to use light medium and dark for depth, come in at the end with dark markers full strength for definition

*sign all work even if you think it's not good

I went in at the end and added yellow to the center as it needed warmth.
The paint was diluted by rubbing the marker on a slick palette then diluting with a bit of water, and dropped onto the dry card.

*be brave and try it. Life is about learning and experimentation, don't be afraid to mess it up

my other finished piece

*masking the piece with tape before painting creates another element, the white strips top and bottom set the whole thing off to me.
*random is really pretty

as much as I like my two small works, and I do, I think I'm captivated by my scrap sheet of paper even more.

*unplanned random images can be the best work

I'm going to show you close ups of the test paper next because cropped into a composition image for the blog, I realize the value of the test work!!!


It is very pretty to me in it's random nature, and I spent no time nor decision making on any of it unlike the actual artwork.






* there is something to just play, don't you think? Unplanned and layered , overlapping images create vignettes you couldn't have planned.

Like the image at the top of my post, this was just a way to test mixing color on the stamp itself, and how direct marker application over watered down pigment would blend.

The blue is strong but not too strong for a future boat bottom or distant depth of water.

The blur of purple introduced when the blue was wet on the paper makes a nice blend.

The yellow green looks subtle but really pretty stamped over the blurry sky

I tested how much water to drag along the stamped lines before they got lost. I found I liked the lines emerging in a subtle way, more of a suggestion of lines, leading the viewer to the idea of a wagon more than a hard edged painting would.
*I also think gold warms up a piece in subtle ways.

Wouldn't this make a lovely book mark?

It's really quite easy to approach doing a watercolor this way

Stamps and some watersoluble markers, some heavy textured watercolor paper, a brush are all that's needed.

And a sense of play










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