World Watercolor Month - Final Week

I can't believe it's the final day of July. There were days when I didn't know what yo draw, other days, when I thought everything I created was not good. But Si made it! The motto for the World Watercolor Month was 31 Watercolors in 31 days and I'm proud to say I did a few more than 31. But before I get to that, let's look at this past week's submission.

Day 25

This was done in my daily journal. My girls and I went shopping and stopped st Garbanzo's for lunch. It is a Mediterranean version of Chipotle's. It's not gourmet but pretty tasty. The drawing is in a weird perspective since I was holding the wrap as if to eat it and I snapped the picture. I had a difficult time drawing the hand because I kept trying to draw my hand like I think they should be rather than what I saw. I think this is a common obstacle among new aspiring artists like me because we have an ingrained image of what things should look like. Practice, practice, practice!

Day 26

This piece was probably the most "liked" piece in the FB group that I shared. Funny because this was done fairly late the night before because ai just couldn't decide what I wanted to paint. I really wanted to keep practicing the loose painting method but Ibthought my previous attempt was a major fail. So after watching several YouTube videos, I started to paint...no pre-drawing; only paint. And once I got going, I felt somehow connected to the piece. And one of the videos I watched the artist used dark green and purple together so I added purple. I actually felt good when I was done. Perhaps that feeling was transferred into my painting. I definitely love the loose style so much when I see other paintings posted. And I'm not sure if it's really my thing but I'm going to keep trying!

Day 27

The end of the month was approaching and I hadn't painted any of my favorite subjects! So for this day, I chose an elephant. Although not completely loose, Ibtried not to worry too much about all the textures. Instead, I focused on light and shadows. I used neutral tint, ultramarine blue for most of the body and added a bit if quinacridone rose. I was really happy with the way this turned out.

Day 28

If you've been following me, you know how much I love coffee! And I can't believe I hadn't done any coffee art. I've never done a top view before. And I really wanted to try painting the bubbles. After drawing the cup and painting the inside with watered down raw umber/burnt sienna mixture, I began darkening with burnt sienna/ultramarine mixture, leaving the reflected light and the inside edge clear. For the bubbles, I just jabbed lightly with my brush. And it worked! For the background, I used the four-color theorem to create the mosaic look.

Day 29

You've seen me draw lots of Okinawan things before. And this is my third attempt at drawing Hanagasa, the flower straw hat that Okinawan dancers wear.

I can see an improvement in my drawing skills but I really like the saturation in my second one. I used the Japanese brand of paint called Kuretake Gansai Tambi. I was too impatient to let it dry and layer more color do that's why my painting looks pale. Some day, Im going to try the kimono! Some day...

Day 30

This is another math-related piece that uses fractals. Fractals are simply shapes, designs, patterns that repeat infinitely. So technically, this is not a fractal in the strict sense, but it does have a repeating motif.  I've always loved swirls, so that was my main motif, done mainly with circles. I love how colorful this is. I painted the background and I added layers of color for the circle swirls.

Day 31

And for day 31 - July 31, I painted my odest two children as it is their birthday. And they only let me photograph them on special days, I used an old favorite from when my son was 4 and daughter was 2. And I can't believe my son is 17!! Time flies.

And so this concludes the World Watercolor Month. But the group is going to continue.. I won't be able to paint everyday but I will try to contribute..

This is all that I painted in July. I didn't share everything with the WWM group but I wanted to use this month to create as much as I could, not only larger pieces but also in my daily journal. And I enjoyed every minute! 

I start work tomorrow, only professional development for now and school starts August 10. Teaching for me takes much of my time so I may not get to paint much. I hope I can. 

World Watercolor Month - Week 3

I can't believe we are half way through the month already! This past week for me was getting back to my "roots" and doing more journal art rather than art pieces. And as much as I love seeing others' works, I found myself trying to create pieces that others would appreciate or acceptable rather than what I find inspirational. So I'm trying to learn from others but apply the learning to my style, if that makes sense. So here are the pieces from this past week!

Day 11

I had jury duty on Monday so I took my art supplies with me to pass the time. Good thing too, as I waited 6 hours and being excused. Luckily, I won't have to appear for at least 18 months. I found I don't like people staring at me while I painted. It's natural for people to be curious, but I kinda had performance anxiety.. Lol. 

Day 12

So if you have been following my art process, you know I usually start with a quote. I thought about things that scare me artistically.. There lots of things of course but I chose painting glass. It's difficult because of caustics (how glass reflects and refracts light) and dealing with different shadows and highlights. So I tried painting my olive oil carafe. I think for the most part I was successful. Green is so hard to render. Most greens that come in a kit or you buy are bright Christmas green and that's not what most greens in nature are. So you have to mix. What I found helpful is a YouTube video by Teoh Yi Chie about color mixing. So I used his method of using the color temperature to mix my greens.

Day 13

Today's focus was people. In my journal, I painted Dustin Pedroia, the second baseman of the Boston Redsox who happens to be my son's favorite player. The night before was the All-Star game and though Dustin was not chosen, I wanted to try to paint him. The second piece was done in my journal last year but I wanted to do it on a larger sheet so I can have it printed. I've been playing with creating skin tones so this was a great exercise. I'm liking Perylene Maroon as my red for skin tones.

Day 14

I practiced brush lettering with watercolors. Brush lettering with brush markers is hard enough but trying to use watercolors and blending the colors is really hard. So I practiced and created this.

Day 15

I had drawn a pair of eggplants in my journal the day before because I made baba ganoush which is a creamy dip made from roasted eggplants. And for day 15, I thought I'd created an illustrated recipe spread. Though both sets of eggplants look good, Ibreally liked the first better - I thought the color and the reflection were better in the first. 

Day 16

I have these inkpads that are dew drop shape. They are India ink pads which means once dry, they are permanent. So I used the inkpads to stamp a few dew drops on watercolor strips and immediately sprayed with water. Some of the ink ran but the shape remained. And while the paper was wet, I added watercolors. Once the whole thing dried, I used metallic gelly roll pens to draw embellishments. These will be bookmarks, though my kids said who uses bookmarks anymore.. Lol

Day 16.2

Here is a spread with lots of zentangle patterns and shaded with Neutral Tint (watercolor paint that is grayish). It's so much easier to shade with paint than with a pencil and a blending stump!

And finally Day 17

I used two colors, Quinacridone Gold and Ultramarine Violet and a straw to create this piece. I used water to create the flower shape and dropped quin gold and used the straw to blow. While wet, I dropped ultramarine violet. Together, they make mud, or a cool brown. Once dry, I dropped more violet so you can see a bit of the violet. I've been holding on to this quote for awhile and thought perfect with this painting. But I almost ran out of space!

This month so far has been so fun. I actually have to start planning for the upcoming school year next week and I actually have to go back to work the last week in July! I'm so happy that I got to spend time creating again. Hope you all have a great week!

World Watercolor Month

Charlie O'Shields over at Doodlewash has launched a world-wide celebration that brings artists from all over the world in different skill levels together! The whole month of July is dedicated to creating watercolor paintings!

The challenge is to create 31 pieces in 31 days. So I'm going to participate! The piece you see above is Day 3. I tell my math students all the time that it's important to know how to solve equations but it is equally important to see if your answer is reasonable.. I think I'm going to have this printed as a poster for my classroom.

Day 2

I played around with masking fluid today. I used an old brush and some liquid Frisket to write the quote. And then painted over that. Once dry, I removed the Frisket and voilà! The quote does apply to me.. 

Day 1

My husband and two of my children (on the ends of the painting) are in Boston visiting family. My other daughter had mandatory cheer practice the whole month of June so she and I stayed home. My sister-in-law sent me a photo of some of the cousins so I tried to paint it. I left the details of the face until the end and I should have stuck with just using watercolors. The pen I used just made their faces too harsh. Faces are difficult..

And yo get ready for the World Watercolor Month, I did color charts of my watercolor supplies in my fauxbonichi.

Yes, I have probably too many.. And then of course this happened...

I bought a set of Sennelier paints because they are heavily discounted. And two new brushes. Who knew brushes would make such a huge difference. 

So I hope to post my pictures on Sunday's of this month. It's great to create again.

My combination bullet journal/fauxbonichi

If you've followed my blog, you know that I have a bullet journal to keep track of appointments, tasks, notes, and whatever else I need to write. I also have a fauxbonichi that illustrates my day or I illustrate a quote that's meaning for me on a particular day. When I started teaching in January, I stopped drawing but kept my bullet journal for all the new to-do's. 

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have a new dotted Tomoe River journal which I wanted to use for a bullet journal. And because I love TR paper so much, I started to draw again.. So I thought, "why couldn't I combine my bujo and fauxbo?" And if I do a one-page daily, I can manage a quick doodle even when I'm busy.. 

So here are sample pages from my bujo/fauxbo combo..

This is my filled weekly/daily spread.

And for the weekend, I'm going to do half a page per day, just so I can start my weekly spread on the next page without wasting paper.

I even had time on Saturday to create a two-page illustrated quote to honor Mohammed Ali, which you see at the beginning.

My weekly spread for next week looks like this.. I decided to stencil the background a bit.

And I'm going to post on the weekend to show you my daily pages and other pieces I may create.. I hope you have a great week! I start teaching summer Algebra 2 tomorrow! Should be fun!

Hello, it's me.

It's been months, I know. I've really missed creating artwork. And now that the school year is over, I feel like I can breathe. It has been a challenging four months. Wait, it was only four months since I started teaching again? Wow, it seems longer. What started as a temporary job as a substitute for a teacher having surgery, it turned into a permanent teaching job! It was challenging because I had to juggle three classes that I was subbing and the three classes that I was actually teaching. Enough. Let's get back to art, sort of..

I created the piece you see above this morning. It felt good to draw and paint, though I'm clearly rusty. It's going to take more practice before I my confidence back to create. I feel like I've lost my mojo. And that's why I started with a quote and a Jane Davenport-style girl. I drew her with my favorite Platinum Carbon Pen and used Shinhan watercolors to paint. The writing was done with Posca white paint pen and a bit of shadowing done with Prismacolor colored pencil. Her face is a bit wonky but it's a start. And I love the quote.  So much of what limits us is in our minds. We create so many imaginary obstacles that prevents us from trying - I can't draw, I'm not creative, I can't do math. And I'm usually good about not letting those obstacles get in my way. I just need to start creating daily again, even if it's just random doodling.

Here are a few pages I've done since the last post. My birthday was May 1 and one of my students made a cake! It was a beautiful strawberry layer cake and it was delicious! She was thrilled that I drew her.

And for Mother's Day, I got a french press! Good bye, Keurig.. I love how the richness of the coffee flavor comes through with the press. And it is a bit more work cleaning it, it's definitely worth it!

My youngest got to attend a mock 1942 White House State Dinner as part of the 7th grade social studies program. Remember, she's the one who also participated in the re-enactment of the Battle of Gettysburg. Her social studies teacher is just wonderful. And on the right, you see a picture of the Bitmoji portrait of my IB SL students. If you don't know about Bitmoji, it is an app that creates an avatar of yourself and I had each student create his/her avatar and send it to me and I created the class picture. I even had a poster made for my classroom and I got each one to sign it! 

I drew this one during work. LOL. My second year students were taking the IB exams so on this day, I didn't have to teach at all but had to cover classes for other teachers and ended up not having time for lunch. But of course, I made time for art. Priorities...

And now, an update on planner. As you recall, I started to use the Bullet Journal system to plan because it wasn't enough to put things on my phone. I am not naturally organized so I have to force myself to be so I can get things done and oh yes, not forget to pick up your child from cheer practice. I was using a dotted (has dots in grids)  Moleskine journal for my BuJo and when I starated teaching, I used a gridded composition book. But then I found a journal with dotted Tomoe River papaer (I use journals with tomoe river paper for my art) from Nanami Paper. Unfortunately, it was sold out and not available until end of June. And so I searched for others like it and found an Etsy shop that sells them and I bought the last one. So this will be my new BuJo.. Yay! By the way, I used Microsoft Sway to create the slideshow. As a side note, I've been using Microsoft products, especiall OneNote to teach and I've come to really appreciate the suite of software that comes with Office.

Siblings

Today is my little sister's birthday!! Happy Birthday, Muts! (Pronounced moots, for Mutsumi) If you noticed the date on the art, you'd know that I painted this last weekend. That's because I wanted to send the card to my sister for her birthday.

My sister and I are very close. In fact, she's my best friend...someone I confide in, laugh or cry with. There aren't many pictures of us together because we weren't together until she was 8 and I was 12.

My parents divorced when I was 4 and my sister was a few months old. My father took my sister and I stayed with mom. I did get to visit my sister but she was never allowed to spend time with us at mom's. Mom tried through the legal system but as a single mom, it was difficult to convince the judge that my sister was better off living with us than my dad and his new wife.

My mother remarried to an American soldier and about a year before my dad (I've always called my stepdad, dad) was transferred back to the states, we found out that my sister was living with her aunt. My biological father had divorced and no one wanted to take care of my sister so she was sent to his sister. Once we found out, we finally got the custody. It was hard at first. She didn't really know mom and dad didn't speak Japanese. And for a few years, she clung to me. 

My dad had adopted me before we left Okinawa and did the same with my sister. She went to the American school on the base but she spoke no English. It was a tough adjustment for her.

I remember at the end of the school year, I was to attend a week long camp to a neighboring island with the 5th grade class. My sister begged me not to go, but my parents though I should go. When I boarded the ship, I could see my sister hysterically crying. It was probably the hardest thing I had to do. Mom told me later that my sister didn't go to school the first two days but was fine enough to go to school on the third day. It also gave mom and dad and Muts to get to know each other.

I think because of the past, we are very close. My kids can't believe that my sister and never fought. It's not that we didn't annoy each other, it was that it never was important enough to "win." For the longest time, she was my shadow, always wanting to hang out with me. And it was in middle school that she began to really hang out with her own friends. It was a little sad for me, knowing that she had others that she could rely on.

Muts is a beautiful person inside and out. The quote I found is meaning for so many reasons. We've been through so much, but we've gotten through them all together. And even today, we still hold hands when we are together. I'm sharing a little bit of our story for my kids to read at some point.

Yesterday, I drew my kids hugging as this was probably the last time they all hugged each other. Lol. And though they fight all the time, I know that they confide in each other. I hope that as they get older, they will support each other and be there for one another. 

MLK Day

I have used quotes by Dr. Martin King Jr. in my art before, but I had never seen this one before. It seems so fitting today, with fear driving some of the presidential campaigns today. 

Fear certainly is a powerful motivator. Kids certain know it, and people who abuse power knows it too. And though I think a little fear is good to get you motivated to do the right thing, it shouldn't be the primary motivation. People in the position of power, whether you're a parent or a leader of a group or country who use fear to "control" others cannot sustain loyalty or command respect. People will follow only until the threat of fear is gone. So the leaders create more fear, more lies to sustain their power.

And who will help us build our dikes of courage? 

Yesterday was Tikkun Olam day at our synagogue. Tikkun Olam roughly translates to repair the world. It is a day for our congregational community to get together to give back to our community at large, do some charity work. Girls and I particles in making mats for the homeless out of plastic grocery bags.

This is not a quick job. It took us two hours to make one panel and it takes 4 panels to make a mat! We brought home two looms so the girls can continue to make them throughout the year. And I'm going to crochet a mat whenever I can. I just have to do the prep work of creating strips of plastic and making a ball of "yarn." I feel like we have a lot to be thankful for. Even with all that happened last year, we never worried about not having a place to live or be hungry. I think this is something our family can do..

So for today's art, I sketched MLK using only two colors, pyrrole scarlet and phthalo blue. It's amazing what two colors can create!

And over the weekend, my prompt for Saturday was "how I relax" and for Sunday it was "favorite shoes." So here they are..

I often read and listen to music on my phone. I have my phone with me all the time and I love to read. It just makes sense.

Other than flip flops, I love my Dansko clogs. These are shoes that many nurses and doctors wear because they are so comfortable. They aren't the prettiest pair of shoes but they are definitely comfortable!

My girls and I are going to watch MLK's "I have a dream" speech on YouTube. It's our MLK day tradition. And maybe work on the mats.

Peacock

Happy Tuesday! Today's art challenge prompt is a bird. And because it's also Tangle Tuesday, I wanted to use a zentangle pattern in my drawing. So I decided to draw a peacock using the zentangle pattern "pea-fea". 

I had drawn something similar previously using pastels.

This was my inspiration. And keeping my promise to myself that I would try to use art supplies I have, I used my Sakura Koi Watercolor Sketch Box set. The colors are vibrant but the paint is a bit more opaque than my other watercolors so I painted first before I inked it. And yes, I should have kept the pea-fea pattern in mind when I painted the peacock, but I didn't. So the colors don't really match the ink work. Lesson learned.

If you would like to try the pea-fea pattern, visit here.