Adding Bright Colors to Black and White Drawings

I'm teaching a class called "Drawing in the Museum" for Osher at Carnegie Mellon University.  We meet in the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History in Pittsburgh.

We've been drawing with graphite pencils on white paper. 

But the winter has been gray, and I wanted to jazz up our drawings a bit.

 I created a stack of colorful papers and brought black and white Prismacolor colored pencils.

We still drew with only black and white, but the brightly painted papers added another layer of pattern, color and interest.

Here is Anita, one of my students, and her drawing of some crystals from the Hall of Minerals. The painted paper allowed her to show white crystals well, including the direction of the grain within them.

Below is a photo I took of two types of Quartz crystals in the Hall of Minerals...

...and my own drawing.

Fossils from Lyme Regis, England.

Fig leaves from my potted fig tree.

I painted a variety of colors and designs on Canson 140# watercolor paper with Dr. P.H. Martin's Liquid Watercolors.  

I let the first side dry, then flipped it and painted the other side.

It was uplifting just to paint with highly saturated, colorful paints.

One of my students said that the papers looked like Northern Lights!

After the paint was dry, I folded each sheet in half to make a 9" X 12" booklet for my students to draw on.

This is a great way to make sketching more of a game. 

 You can also paint splotches of color on sketchbook pages and let them dry.  When you take the sketchbook out, the colorful pathces help to reduce the fear of the blank page -- because it's not blank anymore.  

All you need is a black and a white colored pencil.

Happy Creating! 

A New Color Journal!

 After reading Expressive Sketchbooks by Helen Wells, I was inspired to embark on a color journal.  The whole purpose is simply to explore colors & patterns in an intuitive way.  Here are a few pages.

I used Dr. P.H. Martin's Liquid Watercolors, Uni Posca Paint Pens, and some acrylic paint.

Coffee Shop Fridays: Ink Flow Paintings

In my coffee shop painting project, I have found a voice within myself that steers me towards a particular medium or color, that demands time to create, and that leads me down paths that make my heart happy.   

I actually feel a sensation similar to craving chocolate when this voice says to paint.  And when it's satisfied, there is no regret. I feel fulfilled, delighted, grateful for the time spent. 

Tuesday evening, after a Zoom modeling session, I felt drawn to the vivid colors of Dr. P.H. Martin's Liquid Watercolors. 

I cut a 9" x 11" piece of 140# watercolor paper into strips, then painted clean water over the areas I wanted to bloom color into, and touched droppers full of various colors to the page.  

How fascinating to watch the colors spread onto the wet page, mixing into other colors & evolving. 

I painted the entire page with clean water, then flowed in a single color.  Adding water to the intense blue ink, and sprinkling on table salt created a view into a starry universe:

What if a window of dry paper was left when the colors were dropped in? A rectangle of light within a slice of oceanic blue.

My voice kept guiding me back to Cerulean Blue, even when my brain said Saddle Brown. I am learning to listen to that voice.  When I do, I love what I create. 

I finished up by creating abstract landscapes.

Art for Self-Care: Art Journaling

 
I recently began following The Unexpected Gypsy on YouTube and Patreon.  Her willingness to share her art process and to speak authentically about her life & emotions has inspired me, taught me new techniques, and encouraged me to trust my own creative process. As a result, I have created an art journal.  I relish my time listening to music, sipping tea, and playing with colors in my journal.

For the longest time I resisted art journaling, thinking, "I have a nature journal, a gratitude journal, a writing journal, and lots of materials for art-making, why should I add one more journal?"

Here's why: I am free to create anything I want in my art journal.  I don't have to share any of it, and because it is dedicated specifically to uncovering my own true self -- my creativity, my ideas, my dreams, my struggles, and the images my soul needs to express -- new types of art pop out. 

Sometimes it's just quotes that speak to me and give me a starting place to play with designs & materials.  But often, I find that I start with colors and shapes, like this liquid watercolor painting on gesso.

And then other ideas rise up -- here I added white acrylic paint and white gel pen. Each added layer uncovers more within me. I'm learning to trust my intuition as I create.  

Playing is vital to creative development in any art, and this new art journal has become my playground.  

I recommend finding a blank journal or sketch book to turn into your own art journal and creative playground!

Valentines Update

This time of year, with the snow and cold blustering outdoors, I find myself drawn to bright, bold colors and making Valentines.  Tonight, I brewed up some green tea, carved a new Valentine stamp, and tested it out on papers that I had previously painted with intense Dr. P.H. Martin's Liquid Watercolors.  Nothing like the thrill of bold black lines against vivid magenta, tangerine and violet!

The Speedball Speedy Cut block I used to create my stamp was super easy to carve. 

I painted on sheet music, pages from an old shorthand textbook, and dictionary pages.  The print added another layer of texture.

A finished card.