CREATING ART THE AMATEUR WAY

It is many years ago since I lived in Barbados and while there, in my spare time, I studied interior design through Rhodec International in Boston, USA. One of the things we had to learn was to be able to sketch a room quickly. I mean really quickly. This was a quick sketch and painting of my own living room.  It was cool and comfortable and I often changed the loose sofa covers and cushion covers (which I had made) to match my mood. This was my 'ocean' phase. That's supposed to be me studying on the sofa. The watercolour paints used was a small Winsor & Newton professional grade palette.  I found the hardest part of studying interior design, and we had to study a wide range of topics including rock formation, was perspective. It took me a while. The books I have on perspective, and it has been a long time since I looked at them are these: Reekies Architectural Drawing by Tony McCarthy Colour Drawing: Design Drawing Skills and Techniques for Architects, Landscape Archit...

I think Cherry blossom tree and birds was my first attempt on Yupo paper, I call it paper but it is really a washable plastic which can be used over and over again.  While Yupo is difficult to work with, it also can give some amazing results. This was created used that vibrant watercolour brand, Mijello Mission Gold. I wondered what I could make of it using Grok Imagine and here is my best result. 

This was a quick watercolour painting in a journal just for fun a year ago. Sometimes we just want to paint, don't we, without fuss or pressure. I could have made a better job of it but it isn't the worst painting I have ever done.  I think that Grok Imagine has done a far better job of it. 

I certainly wasn't pleased with the way this watercolour painting turned out. It is quite a while since I painted it, in a journal, but her face!  That is supposed to be me, a keen gardener.  I am happy to say that when I used Grok Imagine to transform the painting into a six second video, that she looks a lot prettier. I love the way the video turned out but it took a while. In earlier videos that cat kept pushing up her skirt so I had to adapt my instructions to Imagine, to make it stop. Goodness me! And the state of that watering can! 😂 Criticisms of the painting aside, it does reflect my garden which is a 24/7, 365 days a year, feeding zone for all wildlife.

I created this image on a Compaq computer, pixel by pixel, back in the very early 90s. Never could I have imagined back then the technology that we would experience, and enjoy, what we have at our finger tips now.  Computer drawing pixel by pixel in the early 90s She has had her eyes closed all these decades as if she was sleeping but now, in 2025, Grok Imagine has woken her up. 

Some time ago, in summer 2022, I decided to paint a picture of a metal goose that I have in my garden room.  It's quite large at about 60cm tall, comical, and cheerful, and I found myself wanting to paint something fun so I got out my Schmincke Horadam watercolours and set to work. I've never framed it or wanted to put it on my wall, but maybe one day it will be a nice gift for someone. It's not my best work by any means as I painted it just for the fun of it so I didn't labour over it, but I do like it. It makes me smile.  The goose, the bee, and the butterfly Metal garden ornament, a goose Since I have had access to Grok Imagine, I have become somewhat hooked on it.  It's fascinating, to me, to watch my paintings come to life and although the animations are superior to my work, I do get something out of it. I get, not least of all, inspiration for other paintings.  The copyright of animations from my original work remain mine.  

Three decades ago, in the early 90s, and long before technology because seriously advanced, I created a portrait pixel by pixel of a Rastafarian on my old Microsoft computer. I think it was a Compaq. Seriously, pixel by pixel. It took a while. Today, all these years later, I turned that pixel portrait into a video in all of about 10 minutes.  And here is the video, created using Grok Imagine.

I am trying so hard to get back into painting and instead of just relaxing and splashing about, I keep trying to do something worthy of hanging on a wall which is rather ridiculous seeing as how I am painting in a journal! I'm really pleased with the Strathmore Mixed Media journal; it does take watercolour very well and although the painting is rather overworked, I still think it looks pretty.  The inside cover of the Strathmore journal looked a little bare so, although it is not watercolour quality paper on the inside cover, I decided to try and connect it to the Koi Carp painting. It was more of a doodle than a plan but I think it works, kinda. Imagine paying $1.8 million dollars for a fish.  I wanted to make a Grok Imagine video of the carp painting and it was a little tricky. These are early days for Grok Imagine and some of the conversions to video were a little weird, like two fish morphing into one.  I think this one will do.  

It's been quite a while since I felt like painting and, as a lot of artists know, once you break off it can be so hard to get back into it. I have been distracted by an out-of-control garden and numerous other things. I decided to paint small and start a journal showing my garden from the very start of what was a blank canvass of unkempt grass right up until present. That's the idea anyway. I have a lot of photographs since 2009 so I won't be stuck for ideas and it is often the coming up with an idea that gives artists the equivalent of writer's block.  I would like to add that the Strathmore Mixed Media journal is really really good with watercolours. I didn't expect it to be but it is. I used Mijello Mission Gold paint, some Coliro green metallic, outlined with a Faber-Castell Pitt Artist pen, and then splashed around a bit with pink because it was SO boring without. 

It has been a while since I did any watercolour painting but I did recently repair a very badly damaged terracotta Long Tom pot. They are relatively expensive to buy and it was fun trying to save it. Some of the pieces were missing from the pot and I have no idea where they disappeared to, so I shoved together some bits of pot and filler, bit by bit building it up, letting it dry, adding some more. It took a while!  Then I sanded it smoother (I didn't fuss), lacquered the inside to stop it being so porous, painted the outside with chalk paint, and stuck transfers on it. Then I added two coats of lacquer and that was that.  It now has a Tumbling Tom tomato plant in it which disguises the botch job. 😄

I like, when the pages of my journals are open, for the 'artwork' to be complementary in some way to form a cohesive whole, so I watercolour-doodled an abstract, letting the Mijello Mission Gold paint and colours do as they will, then outlined shapes with a Faber-Castell Pitt Artist pen.  How it looks when the pages are open.

I have not been in the mood for anything too complicated or laborious in watercolours so I've been, more or less, doodling in a journal. The transparent flowers are painted with Mijello Mission Gold watercolours 'Bright Opera' and 'Bright Violet'. The vases and foliage were painted with Mijello Mission Gold 'Leaf Green' and 'Viridian'. The ink outlining was with a Faber Castell Pitt Art Pen 0.1. I just roughly painted petal shapes in very diluted Bright Opera and then when dry overlapped the petals with diluted Bright Violet. Sometimes I didn't even bother to let the bottom petals dry properly.  The vase was trial and error. I wasn't bothered about shape perfection any more than I was with the flowers, but I wanted depth of colour and interest. I painted a very dark tonal value of Viridian and when it was partially dry dropped small amounts of clear water into it with the tip of my clean brush, creating watercolour blooms.  The behaviour of w...

While I find inspiration for a larger painting for my living room wall, I am resorting to using my journals. I have some gloriously colourful sheer fabric which I bought years ago just because it is gloriously colourful, and it was the inspiration for this painting. I put loads of Mijello Mission Gold paint on the paper with a lot of water and let it do it's thing. Then I doodled around shapes with Faber-Castell Pitt Artist fineliner. The journal is by the Hand-Book Journal company. 

I am trying to paint without stress, without worrying whether I've done a great job or not, playing with paint, and so I have an orange sky, pink mountain range, turquoise hillside, a kind of foggy bit, green fields, and trees of various shapes. It's in my Hand-Book journal. It was fun and that is what amateur painting should be, isn't it? Therapy in these stressful times.  The painting was done with various bits of leftover paint in palettes, Mijello Mission Gold and Daniel Smith custom mixed.