World WaterColor Month Week 2

July is definitely speeding by quickly!  And I must say I've enjoyed every single day!  Don't get me wrong, I love teaching.  But having this month to decompress and create has been truly restorative.  And the piece above speak to my happy heart.  Continuing with using supplies I have, I used Holbein Watercolors to create this piece.  I knew I wanted a nebula-like background with white writing, so I started out using the Fineline Masking Fluid Pen to write the quote before painting.  Even after an hour of waiting, the masking fluid hadn't completely dried - it was somewhat still sticky to the touch.  The impatient me just painted over it.  Needless to say, the gummy masking fluid was really difficult to remove.  I ended up writing over it with white pen.  This is probably what I should have done to begin with.  

I wanted to recreate this on watercolor paper so I can print it as a poster for my classroom.  So I used Fluid 100 140lb/300gsm hot press paper.  It has a very smooth surface, very velvety to the touch.  I decided to skip the masking and patnted the whole hair and wrote the quote using Posca White Paint pen.  

I'm not sure if I like this one as much as the one in my journal so I'll have to decide later if I will print this.  But the decision to use the white paint pen was the right one!

Monday, July 10

The promt today was beach days.  I decided to paint an old photo of me floating in the ocean in Okinawa.  I had done this two years ago and it was interesting to see the comparison.

The drawing on the left is from two years ago.  The photo has faded considerably over the last several decades so I painted the ocean with colors I remember. I've no idea who the woman is.  I think that I'm able to sketch what I see better than I used to.  I'm never going to be those artists that can reproduce photographic images with watercolor, and I don't want to.  I think what I want is to be able to tell a story with my images.  I'm definitely not good with words, but certainly not good with describing emotions and thoughts so hopefully my sketches will fill in the gap.

Tuesday, July 11 - Summer Views

What does a blueberry muffin have to do with summer views?  Nothing, except that it was National Blueberry Muffin day and it was my view for the day.  I never have time to actually make breakfast for the kids during the school year, so it's nice to be able to do this on the spot.  I love blueberries and I usually snack on the them in the morning.  I also got to show off some brush lettering that I've been practicing.  

I love using Daniel Smith watercolors for baked goods, especially the Quinacridone Gold, Quinacridone Burnt Orange, and Burnt Sienna.  I've never been happy with other paints when I try to paint baked goods.  I started this sketch with Sennelier paints and I love them but had to switch to Daniel Smith to paint the muffin top.  By the way, the muffins were delicious! 

Wednesday, July 12 - did not use the prompt

This one required more time than I usually spend on a painting and several revisions. The first part was the girl.  It's a weird perspective for me, one I had not attempted before.  She is looking up and standing.  Because she's holding flowers, you don't see the rest of her body. 

As you can see, my original just doesn't look right, the arms are too rounded  she lookslike she's stretching.  So I decided to darken the bottom so that there is a fading effect.

Since I would be placing a quote, I thought this would work, and it did. Until....

I got to the last line of the quote and I wrote the worng word and my attempt to cover that up didn't work.  But since I had the previous picture, I could place the quote digitally. I used an iphone App called Over to place the quote.

But I wanted to see if I could somehow salvage the original.  So I gesso'd over the bottom but the letters still ghosted through.  I ended up using a correction tape over the words, and then added more gesso.

I then painted over the that and added the rest of the quote. 

I think I'm pretty happy with the result. 

Thursday, July 13

You've seen me use the ends of bok choy before, but this crop of bok choy came with yellow flowers in the middle of each stalk!  And not knowing anything about growing vegetables, I had to google to find out if it was safe to eat the bok choy.  I read that it could be bitter but still edible and we didn't eat the flowers but I painted them! Here's the finished piece with a quote. So at my house, not only do we eat our vegables, we use them as stamps! 

The prompt today was popsicle and I've never liked them much.  But I do love ice cream!  And lately, eating ice cream cones affects my waisteline significantly, so I've been having these Healthy Choice Fudge Bars.  And at 100 calories per bar, I can have it every day!

As you can see, I bought three books to help me with my creative process.  When school starts, it will be difficult to find time to journal everyday with illustrations.  So I wanted to loosen up my sketches so that I don't have to feel like I have to create a masterpiece everyday.  Art Before Breakfast by Danny Gregory and Urban Watercolor Sketching by Felix Scheinberger are perfect for this.  And those of you who are convinced you can't draw, you should really try Art Before Breakfast (Deedles, I'm talking to you!)  The third, Painting with Watercolor, Pen & Ink by Claudia Nice is to help me refine my skills. When I learn, I need to activate both sides of my brain, both the creative and the analytical. 

Friday, July 14 - Games in the grass

My kids usesd to love to blow bubbles and chase them! Especially when we lived in Michigan, we spent hours outside in the summer blowing bubbles.  I think they would still enjoy blowing bubbles, but definitely not outside in the hot Phoenix sun!  

Over the next few months (maybe longer) I'm going to be working on two art projects.  One is to create a comprehensive color chart and mixing chart using Tomoe River Paper, which is what my journals contain.  I've started a color mixing chart with watercolor paper, but TRP is behaves differently than watercolor paper so my chart is not as useful as it can be.  So I just ordered a separte TRP journal to serve as my color journal.  I actually can't wait to get this one started. I'm definitely using Jane Blundell's blog as my guide.

The second project is create a spreadsheet/database of my illustrated quotes.  I do have a bullet journal collection that lists the quotes and where the quotes are located in the various journals I have.  But I'm wanting a searchable electronic collection so I find the quote or the image easier.  I'm not sure yet how I'm going to do this, but will be exploring different options.

So, I have lots of creative projects to keep me busy.  By the way, I'm not going to use the Seven Seas Crossfield anymore because the company has changed the layout of the journal.  Instead, I'm going back to Taroko Shop Enigma on Etsy.  It uses a heavier tomoe river paper and comes with 380 pages, not as much as the Crossfield, but it has dotted pages.  I just ordered two journals, one for my color mixing journal and one for my bullet journal/art journal when my current Crossfield is finished.

I hope you have a wonderful week!  I'm going on vacation next week so hopefully, I can sketch/journal everyday.  My art supplies will be the first things I pack!

Art and Mathematics - The Four Color Theorem

We all remember middle and high school history courses and the hours spent coloring maps. I remember there were restrictions about having to color each adjacent countries a different color. In 1852, a young man named Francis Guthrie noticed that when coloring the counties in England, only four colors were needed. He then wondered if this is true for any map. This started a chain of events that lead to its proof more than 120 years later!

There have been several proofs offered by notable mathematicians but all had been insufficient for a formal proof. It wasn't until 1976 when two mathematicians, Kenneth Appel and Wofgang Haken used a computer to finally prove the four color theorem by showing that there are certain number of map configurations and that all required no more than 4. Now, you may be thinking what a waste of time. But this is remarkable in that this was the first time a computer was used to prove a mathematical conjecture. 

If you have ever tried to color in a coloring book or better yet at a restaurant coloring the placemat given to your child, you're going to need at least four colors to make sure that whatever you're coloring will have distinct color for each outlined area. And next time you're wondering how to color an abstract drawing like the following, just use this simple diagram..

Let's pretend that you want to color the following:

You picked your 4 colors and start to color and all of a sudden, you realize that you need another color so that two of the same colors won't be touching each other. Luckily, you made a copy of the original line drawing so you can start again, but you want to be smart this time and plan. Hmm, how do you plan? You can put tracing paper over your line drawing and draw a circle inside each area and connect the circles to each other where they touch.

Now, you have a simplified model of your line drawing.

All you do now is to start with one circle and color it in and add colors to the circles that connect to it. You can use the same colors as long as it does not appear in your connected circles. So it may look like this.

And now, you can color your line drawing.

For my art, it was a bit more complicated than assigning colors to specific regions because I arbitrarily added restrictions (I only wanted to use pink and purple for my petals and yellow for the center). I drew a simple cherry blossom flower and randomly placed lines around the whole drawing. And I only used four colors to color the whole thing. Although it may look better with more colors, sometimes, less is more. All graphics were made using Power Point and MS Paint

There are many excellent articles that shows more of the proof. Here is one.

National Bobblehead Day

I love bobbleheads. My dad had the hula girl bobblehead but it was not stuck to the dash of his car. It would totally be a distraction for me as I could stare at it for hours.

It seems that bobbleheads are popular among sports fans as my son has several of his favorite ball players. They are fun.

And in honor of National Bobblehead Day, I drew myself as a bobblehead on my table as I get ready to journal. My bobblehead would be carrying a journal and a sketchbook and of course, coffee. And lately, my hair is in a side braid because I'm too lazy to blow dry it or style it. And I'm always in yoga pants with an oversized shirt. Ha! I used Daniel Smith Watercolors and my Platinum Carbon pen.

What would your bobblehead look like?