WIP December #1: Introduction + Mini Paintings

I’ve been having a lot of fun with art related posts, and I got this idea at the end of October to do a short art series in the month of December. I wanted to end of the year in a way I haven’t done before. So, starting today and scattered throughout the month of December, I will be posting somewhat random pieces of art including sketches and paintings. I'm calling this WIP (work in progress) December. There will be six posts in total.
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WIP: Mini paintings (waterfall; barn; lake).

            

Comments: If you follow the blog on twitter, you might have caught the tweet about the barn and lake paintings. And let me tell you, I’m having an inordinate amount of fun painting on small pieces of paper. I found that it’s a good exercise because the limited space has challenged me to think about what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, and committing to each color choice and brush stroke. Fun fact: when I paint water, I don’t typically do reflections on. It’s a weird habit that I’ve developed and hope to get away from. So, I wanted to switch it up for the lake piece and actually work on some reflections.

Fun fact #2: waterfalls aren’t that difficult for me—neither are most basic bodies of water like beaches and coves. When I started mixing in traditional painting with digital painting, oceans, waterfalls, and lakes were the subjects I started on and got really good at. I’ve done them often enough to memorize the key features and colors. Water turned into a subject I enjoy painting. It's kind of relaxing.

I’m probably going to be drawing more buildings for WIP December, because I want to get to the point where I can draw from memory instead of relying so much on references for simple things. I need to stop painting bodies of water, and get to work on buildings.
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Thought Corner: Canson Watercolor Paper

Campany: Canson 

Type of paper: Watercolor
Source: Purchased

Other info: 140lb; 300g

Size: 9in X 12in

Number of sheets: 30

Walmart     Michaels     Blick Art Materials    

More information:

Ideal for watercolor, acrylic, ink, and other wet techniques. Surface sizing to control absorbency. Durable surface allows for reworking. 

Today, I have a different kind of review to share on the blog. I'm going to be talking about one of my recent purchases: Canson Watercolor Paper. The example I’m going to be using for this post are from a page of birds that I painted on August 16th, 2017. Birds are actually sort of one of my weaknesses, and usually I'll draw quick simplified ones that don't require much of anything at all. I had a lot of fun with this page; although, I feel like I could have done a little better with the Christmas Robin. But it is what it is. Luckily, I'm only using the pelican as a example. The European Robin is just the sad bird that hangs out in the corner of a couple of the pictures.

Some things to know...

• Like with any paper, you really have to test it out for yourself to see what works best for you. This post is my opinion based off of my experience.
• Price was fair for thirty individual sheets.
• I used Reeves Watercolor paint for these paintings.

Canson is a brand that came highly recommended—thanks Adri—and I was eager to try their watercolor paper for myself. Here's what it essentially looks like. Outward appearance is pretty normal for what you would expect from watercolor paper. The size is also pretty standard when compared to what I've used before.

However, that being said, I do like the interior design. When you open the cover it’s not directly attached to the paper, so you can fold it back and have it out of the way. I found that to be incredibly useful since my desk has a very limited surface space left over between my laptop and art supplies. This feature is particularly useful when I don't necessarily want to take the page off of the stack.

Now, the paper is basically the selling feature. I've used 90lb cold press, and let me tell you it's nothing like the 140lb. For one, the latter is a lot sturdier. Two, I liked the way the paint dried. Reeves already has a matte finish, but between this paper and the one I was using, Canson was noticeably smoother. Three, it handled the water well. It does warp under heavy saturation, but if you have tape around the edges it'll be fine. And four, reworking top layers of paint is easy.

The progress of the Pelican from left to right...

The progress of the pelican shows what I mean about the potential for reworking. This is the only bird I didn't work on continuously. I set it aside for a least an hour before returning and it was easy to get right back to smoothing out some of the edges—particularly in the brown and blue areas along the head, neck, and wing.

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(Finished pelican was touched up with a bit of white Sakura Gelly Roll gel pen around the blue part beneath the brown of the beak.)

Overall, I‘m really happy with this paper and will be buying more from this brand in the future. One more thing: Puffins are now my favorite bird. They’re adorable. I didn't get the progress of the puffins on camera, but I wanted to post them anyway. So, here are a pair of bonus Puffins. If you look in the corner of the picture on the left, the European Robin makes another very small appearance, LOL...

Have you tried any of Canson's paper? If so, tell me about your experience in the comments down below. And if not, would this be something you would be interested in? Or what is u our favorite type of watercolor paper.

Weekend Tidbits {#12}: Art Haul

I’m not going to bother with a long introduction because I meant to post this awhile ago (around Easter actually). This is just the kind of post that I kept adding to the longer it sat in the draft folder. Now that I've come back to it again and added a few more things to it, I figured that it was time to just post it so I can finally move on...

For Easter, I did some baking. The cookie recipe is Hershey's Doubly Chocolate Cookies just sans the chocolate chips, because they weren't necessary for what I was doing. I used the dough two ways: heart shaped cookies (pictured below) with the Wilton silicone heart mold, and the rest went to just ordinary cookies. The regular old cookies were used to make those sandwiches (pictured below). I also used up the left over candy melts from a different baking project, as you can see on the cookie sandwiches. The heart shaped ones also got a similar treatment, but I never got around to getting a picture of them before they got eaten. By the way, they were delicious.

In 2016, I focused more on developing my skills at digital painting, but this year I'm doing more than that. I've gotten back into painting by hand, and it's so much fun. It has been a long time since I’ve used watercolors, and I don't mean a couple of months. I'm talking about years. Yes, it has been that long, and during that time I lost my old watercolor pans as well as most of my supplies. So, I actually have a small art haul.

I picked up some Reeves Watercolour paints, new brushes, a watercolor pad, and a basic palette. I’ll probably talk about the paints later since I’ve only used them a few times. I also picked up some Papermate felt tip pens because they were on sale, and I wanted to try them. I’ve only used them a handful of times, but I love them so much. The colors are really nice and I’ve had a lot of fun just using them to doodle or quickly go over sketches. Like the paint, I'll probably have more to say about the felt tip pens once I've used them more than I already have. The last thing I picked up were two Gelly Role gel pens in white. My sister let me borrow hers, and I really loved how well the gel pens work for smaller details on top of the reeves paint. So, I felt that it was necessary to get my own since I plan on painting more.

Since I wrote this post a while ago, I've picked up more than just the above shown items. I've gotten some acrylic brushes, Reeves Gouache, and a new sharpener.

I forgot to mention this on twitter, but I picked up a few comics on free comic book day. I went to two different stores, but by far my experience at Ryan's Comics was the best. The staff was friendly, and they had a cosplayer by the door telling you about the event on the way in. So, there was no confusion about the event and how many comics you could pick. I've made purchases from Ryan's Comics before, and suffice it to say I will be going back again.