CREATING ART THE AMATEUR WAY

My home now looks like an art gallery, but do I care? Everywhere there are paintings of mine and I will sit and look at them and think how, although I am still very much an amateur, they please me. I had my painting of baby harp seals on the wall and wanted a painting to complement it, so I painted this polar bear swimming.  Fortunately, and the good thing about this blog for me, is that I had noted what brand and colour of paints I used when painting the seals; it is Schmincke Horadam supergranulating 'Glacier Turquoise', 'Deep Sea Indigo', and ivory black for the eyes, nose, and shading. The painting surface is Arches 300lb cold press.   Polar bear swimming Baby harp seals Then along came Grok Imagine and I realised how inspirational it is for painting ideas. 

This is actually a work in progress and it has been on hold for a long time while I forget it about it and then I remember and wonder if I should leave it, add to it, and so on.  I thought it was time to bring it into the light on this Chinese New Year of the Dragon. It has been painted on almost a full sheet of heavyweight watercolour paper and was originally intended to be a diptych. This might just be the year I finish it.  Watercolour Dragon I confess, it is now nearly the end of 2025 and I have still not worked on this painting. Other things demanded my attention. Then I recently started learning to use AI technology, namely Grok Imagine, and I must tell you it is inspirational. It also makes my art pale into insignificance because the animations are far superior to my work! See for yourself below. 

Prior to this I created a watercolour painting of Koi Carp leaping and I liked it so much I decided to do another in a similar fashion. I posted that earlier. This is, again, using vibrant Mijello Mission Gold watercolours. If you look carefully, you can see the cat face staring at the fish through the water. I made the cat's eyes fish-shaped and the nose like a fish tail. There are swans in the distance, and a frog in the corner too.  Cat and the Koi Carp I don't worry about perspective now, I don't follow rules of any kind that I am aware of. I did have problems creating the splashing of the tails and the surface of the water; something I have no real experience of doing.  I used Grok Imagine to make my above painting come to life.

Watercolour 'Koi Carp Leaping' I'm not sure what style you would call this painting.  Carp breeding is said to have begun in China but it is the Japanese who have become known for the various breeds of Koi Carp much sought after by collectors. I know how I was inspired to paint it though; there is a channel on YouTube (Eruda Art, also on Facebook) with demonstrations of the most beautiful paintings of this kind, far superior to my own, but I needed to have a go.  Elements in the Painting There is a lot going on as you can see. The Koi Carp, the Asian jars and dishes including the Chinese ginger jar (which exists and is something that belonged to my late mother, originally a birthday present from me), the lilies and the lily pad, and the bamboo canes. Behind the leaping carp is a plate from which water is splashing and the carp is staring into a bowl of water in which there are tiny fish. It's not perfect, I know. There is a major flaw which annoys me and which I may t...