More from the Art Workshops!

Sketchbook Revival continues till April 30 but so far I've filled a lot of pages on my book! I shared the cats and landscape with you HERE. These are a few other pieces.

For the most part, these workshops have really allowed me the opportunity to play, to step out of my comfort zone and loosen up. For one who has to restrain herself from putting in every brick on a house portrait, that's so much harder than it seems. But that's what is making it fun. 

For example, when the description of the workshop is turning blobs of paint into birds or cats, I had to try!

 

And I find this terribly fun and freeing. Is it great art? No. But it's fun art. And it has me painting again. And, thinking outside my own narrow box of creativity.

And you have to admit, they're pretty cute.

 

Well, I'll admit it, even if you don't!

Another workshop that was freeing found us taking a photo or piece of art as inspiration. I chose this calendar by my cousin, Annie Taylor of Annie's Omnium.

Our challenge? To pull out the various colors into a horizontal strip motif and add some of the elements of the original. For example, if there were circles or squares, you might incorporate those. In Annie's art there were flowers, raindrops, dots, and lines. Here's the finished piece...

...and the two side by side. I'm not thrilled with it (my version, not the original!) but it's a good exercise to loosen up.

Loosening up with florals was fun too. No painstaking direct copy of the flower but something more flowing and loose.  

We started out with watercolor pencil for the general sunflower shape and then moved on to the watercolor. It was a wonderful video.

I had trouble with this one -- using repetitive patterns. The patterns were fine. But painting around them in the black was a real challenge, getting the black even (I didn't), accidentally covering up stems and bits of the blooms (I did). I didn't like it at all while I was doing it but when it was done, liked it much more!  (In a different medium than watercolor, I could paint over the black or even paint on a black surface, but it doesn't work that way with watercolor!)

The instructors on Sketchbook Revival all have offered some sort of "free gift," which may be an additional tutorial or a handout. Barbara Baumann, who did the ballet dancer sketch from the last art post offered a lesson of doing a "grumpy chick." I decided to take it up a bit and add a jolly hat and maybe make him into not quite-so-grumpy for Easter cards.

 

 And then I thought, "As long as you're doing Easter cards, how about a bunny...

...or a basket of eggs?

It's felt fun to get back to creating!

I leave you with another of the "blobs."

 

Baa! 

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