CREATING ART THE AMATEUR WAY

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. 

This was done for a bit of fun and I quite liked it considering I had never painted a Zen stack of pebbles before, then I went and wrecked it. F ortunately I'd taken a photo pre accident.   You see, thing is, I accidentally, and without realising it, got the cuff on my woolly cardigan slightly wet while washing dishes and as I was adjusting the painting (cannot remember exactly what I was doing now) I noted I was smear ing my painting with water. I kid you not.  Note to self: watch out for wet cuffs.  I think I used Schmincke Horadam for this one with the background of Daniel Smith's 'Buff Titanium' (a favourite colour of mine) . 

I hear this so very often that, when someone breaks off painting for a length of time, they find it difficult to get back into it. I find that too and also frame of mind has a great impact. The thing to do, as they say, is do it without pressure. So here are my attempts without pressure. They are in a Handbook-Journal and when it is closed you cannot see them - which is a good thing in this case, I think. 🤣 I had various colours of paint which were already in palettes so I used those. Waste not want not.  Watercolour mushrooms painted just for the fun of it. Those spikey things are from an actual photograph of moss spores that I took and find them extremely beautiful. The watercolours ones are painted with a lot of artistic licence and not a lot of patience.  Quick watercolour painting of a row of trees.