Category: art

April 2022

Anna

I’m reading: Uprooted by Naomi Novik. I read Spinning Silver by her last year and loved it; this one is in the same genre and maybe I still prefer Spinning Silver but it’s very good! Lots of fantasy and magic and evil trees.

I’m knitting: Still working on my stripy tank top. I haven’t been knitting at home much recently so I’ve mainly been working on this during long car journeys (I can’t read or use screens in a moving car without getting a headache but also I get bored so I take some fairly plain knitting I don’t have to look at) (obviously I am not the driver). It’s worked bottom-up and I’m nearly at the armholes. I might have to knit at home for a bit then while I divide for the top parts etc.

stripy colourful tank top knitting project

I’m drawing: Lots of sketches at the moment! Trying to work from photographs and it’s very tricky. I can get better results by using a grid but I’m trying to learn how to sketch people freehand. I’ve managed one or two that are recognisable which I’m happy about!

sketches of my daughters, some better than others (the sketches, not the daughters)

I’m learning: How to do more lettering and doodle illustrations, from this course on Domestika, Creative Doodling and Hand-Lettering for Beginners with Grace Frösén. I like the Domestika courses, I’ve done a couple of others (Creative Watercolour Sketching for Beginners with Laura McKendry and Artistic Portrait with Watercolours with Alejandro Casanova). I like how they’re easy to pick up and do bits when I have the time and inclination and I’ve learnt a lot from each one. I do find it difficult to make myself watch videos, I usually have to be doing something else at the same time, something crafty or playing a computer game. I bought a bundle of courses in a Black Friday sale and still have three more to do but there’s no rush.

doodles!

Categories: art, craft, drawing, knitting, reading, sketchbook1 Comment

I Love Lichen

Anna #

I mean, look at it

yellow lichen on a tree branch

I love the shapes, I love the colours. When I’m out for a walk, in the forest or in town, I’m always looking out for it and maybe taking a quick picture.

yellow and grey lichen on a brick wall

So when I sat down to paint the other day, and flipped through the photos on my phone for inspiration, I quickly decided to paint some lichen-y shapes.

abstract watercolour painting of yellow, green and grey lichen

This was fun as it let me do my favourite parts of wet-on-wet, letting the colours mingle and dry however they would. The limited palette brought it together a bit more than when I just use all the colours (though it’s hard not to! I love all the colours). And I enjoyed painting the wibbly shapes and ferny bits of the lichen.

close-up of lichen watercolour art

Today I went on a woodland walk with my eldest and took a few more lichen pictures. So I’m sure more lichen art won’t be far behind.

another close-up of lichen watercolour art
Categories: art, watercolour1 Comment

Why I Love Watercolour

Anna

When I started drawing I mainly used a pencil, then after a while I started working digitally. I liked this when I was learning, because I had an undo button and I could move things about and make changes easily without having to start again or worry about ruining what I’d already done. But at the moment watercolour is my favourite.

The main thing I love about watercolour is how many different ways you can use it. You can work loosely with broad brushstrokes to build up an image.

You can work in layers and gradually build up colour.

You can make paintings that are detailed to the point of photorealism…

…or you can just play with colours and let them run together and see what happens.

There are lots of little things I love about watercolour, too. I love that I can mix up colours in my palette and leave them until my next painting session, just adding a bit of water when I’m ready to use them again. I love the way that watercolour paintings ‘glow’. I love that pretty much every colour washes out (phthalo blue stains so you have to be careful with that one). And I love how portable it is, which is good because I have to paint on the kitchen table so I have to be able to get everything out and put it away quickly!

Categories: art, watercolour

Review – Craft Books from Pen & Sword

Anna

I received these books in exchange for a review

I was fortunate enough to be sent some craft books from Pen & Sword to review. I chose Modern Brush Lettering, Paint Make Create and Colourful Fun Embroidery.

All the books are colourful and cheerful, I love the design and styling. The photographs are really lovely and show clearly what to do with step-by-step instructions. I had trouble taking my own photos of the books as my teenager kept trying to make off with them; I think the embroidery one is her favourite but she was also trying out the brush lettering as soon as I put the book down!

Modern Brush Lettering is the book I was most interested to try. I have some brush pens I bought a few years ago but never got on very well with. I’m better at art now so I wanted to give them another go. The book gives you a good introduction to lettering and has some practice exercises as well as a couple of alphabets, then a selection of projects for the seasons of the year. Another alphabet or two might have been nice but I found the instructions clear and there was good information about supplies and lots of different ways you could use the lettering.

Paint Make Create has a wide selection of projects using different kinds of paint, from watercolour to acrylic to fabric paint. There were a few ideas I wouldn’t have considered, such as the flower cake topper, and I’d love to give the abstract art collage a try. The teenager wants to try decorating a tote bag. This book is by the same author as the brush lettering one and a few of the projects are similar but there is enough variation and it has given me a lot of ideas for things to try!

Colourful Fun Embroidery is the third book. I don’t do a lot of embroidery but this book looked so bright and cheery! Now I just want to get a lot of hoops and fill them with colourful words and patterns and hang them all over the house. My favourites are the simpler ones with a phrase and some decoration and I like how all the templates are in the back of the book for easy tracing.

The first place I started with these books was the brush lettering as I already have everything I need – I’d like to try it out with watercolour paint and brush as well as I think that would work nicely.

brush lettering practice!

Categories: art, craft, review1 Comment

Learning to Draw

Anna # # # #

One of the biggest differences between my crafting now and back when I used to blog is that I can draw now.

It’s something I’ve always wanted to be able to do, like a lot of us I suspect. Then in summer 2014 I was talking to an artist friend, and she mentioned an article she’d seen about how drawing is completely a learnt skill – anyone with enough fine motor control to write their name can learn to draw. You just have to practice. She recommended a book to me – You Can Draw in 30 Days by Mark Kistler (amazon link) – and it must have been just the right time because I bought the book and did the exercises, and then I just kept practising. Not every day, or even every week sometimes, but I kept drawing on and off and filled up some sketchbooks.

Sketchbook pages, 2014

More recently I took out another book from the library – Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards (amazon link). This one is for complete beginners really but I still found some useful things in it. It talks a lot about how learning to draw is really about learning to see, which is definitely what I’ve noticed. I look at things differently now. I notice more. The world is more interesting, landscapes, faces, plants all have more detail. If you want to learn to draw then this book is probably the best one to start with – it’s very encouraging. She compares learning to draw to learning to drive, in that most people can do it, you just have to learn certain things (steering, changing gear, giving way at roundabouts) and after that you have to practice a lot to increase your skills and your confidence.

Sketchbook pages, 2016

I’ve mainly used pencils, colouring pencils and watercolour, and also I draw a lot digitally (I use an app called Procreate on my iPad, originally with a cheap stylus, then for the last year with an Apple Pencil which is incredible). Over the last year I’ve started trying to learn to watercolour Properly, and I’ve painted some portraits and landscapes that I’m really proud of and which I will share in other posts.

Sketchbook pages, 2020

As well as being fun in and of itself, learning to draw and paint has made every single thing I make better. I can sketch out ideas that actually look right. I can see how shapes and edges fit together for the best composition, and I can mix and balance colours. I wish I’d done it years earlier, but starting at 32 was also pretty good.

Watercolour, July 2021
Categories: art, drawing, sketchbook, talking, watercolour4 Comments