CREATING ART THE AMATEUR WAY

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. 

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.  You see, 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. Fortunately, I had taken a photograph before that.  Note to self: in future 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 thought I would see what Grok Imagine could do with it and I had an idea of an ant.  Take a look. 

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.  I had various colours of paint which were already in palettes so I used those.  Watercolour mushrooms painted just for the fun of it. Those spikey things are moss. I show below a macro photograph of moss spores that I took.  Moss close up I turned the mushroom painting into a fun short video using Grok Imagine. 

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. 

A while ago I covered a pair of flowery china vases with a rough texture Ronseal 'smooth finish filla' and then painted them with Annie Sloan 'Graphite' chalk paint.  Yesterday, I decided to apply Annie Sloan gold leaf to them. I daubed the vases with 'Gold Size' and when that dried I applied the gold leaf (they are brass actually) onto the size. I protected them with clear wax. I rather like the result.  Disaster befell me a week or so ago when the plastic tap-in wall hooks which held up all my art frames began to crash spontaneously to the floor. They had been in place for a year or two and suddenly the hook parts began to snap off!  I had to take all my paintings down, to be safe, and rethink the situation. Certainly I will not be using those wall hooks again, at least not for frames with glass in them!  While they were down, I decided to paint a lot of the frames black. That brought about the decision to decorate the vases black and gold. See? 😐

I painted this Red Capped Crane a while ago using Schmincke Horadam watercolours. I decided yesterday that I wanted it to form a group of paintings on my wall, all with a similar oriental theme so today I touched it up a little, making the sun a bit redder, adding flag iris and a couple of koi carp for the bird to focus on. I then coloured the painting's frame with Annie Sloan 'Graphite' chalk paint.  Below is a Grok Imagine video created from the above image. It was such fun to do. I began to feel like Walt Disney. I bet he would have liked to create his films so quickly. It seems so miraculous, the technology we have today and makes me wonder just how much further it can go? I envisaged the huge flat screen TVs on walls long before they were available, but I could never have foreseen technology such as we have today. I imagine younger generations take it all very much for granted. 

As we all know, art isn't just applying watercolour, oil, or acrylic to a canvas. A couple of years ago I got chalk-paint madness and I decorated every single piece of furniture in my home with it, as well as ornaments and lamps. I even decorated garden pots with it. This is a Mexican clay urn which developed a huge crack in it. Reluctantly, I made the decision to paint it and I'm glad I did.  First I sealed the crack in the urn with polyfilla and added a layer on the base so that it was stable when stood upright and no longer supported by the original stand. When that had set I covered the entire pot with Annie Sloan 'Old White'.  While still wet, I took a small sea sponge and dunked it alternately in Annie Sloan 'Graphite' and Hemway 'Pastel Blue' and kept on dabbing the white with the dark grey and blue until I got the desired effect. When finished and the chalk paint was dry, I went over it with a protective layer of Annie Sloan 'Clear Wax' a...