I have the watercolors the water crayons, the acrylics ( crappy one’s albeit…) now what do I do? I want one of the drop dead wonderful backgrounds that I see everyone create with the bright blues, yellows and reds!!! Where do I begin?
How does one learn to do backgrounds? How can I become arty?, lol!
Help?!
On a brighter note, I am fighting a move to the small house in BF Egypt. There was no snow this winter subsequently, there was no work for The Hubbs. I am now looking for a fulltime job so that I can contribute to the income and preserve the status to which I have grown accustomed…namely living near the airport in a small community. For my birthday, my Bästis Kompis, Jeanette gifted me with this FABULoUS collage of none other than (my almost favorite) Swede,: Carl Von Linne’
The father of Botany, Namer of plants etc…
I have hearted old uncle Kalle since I met him at Jeanettes and this is how our relationship has developed…
! There is a larger size but from the hand scripted placque to the mini herbarium, Jeanette made it all! This was so unexpected and absolutely one of the few things that must be saved in the event of an emergency! I love love love it! It speaks of vintage, hand crafted, patience and the love of a best friend. This is by far the nicest thing that anyone has ever given, let alone made me. There are mini lockets with photos of insects and flowers, butterflies…literally something new to discover everytime that I look at it!
Thank goodness for vintage things, flea markets and good friends!
Soul Glo 
Sorry love, no can do! I dont do drawing or painting unless it means smudging a bit on a layout!!
woman move by me so we can play!!!
what do u want to do?
What are you painting/drawing? I like to start with watercolors for a light background, or acrylic paints for a solid, creamy blend of sky, when painting… you can do pastels over watercolors easy… guess it depends what you plan on doing? Try it all, see what feels right! Hope you don’t have to move away from your city, yuk… good luck!
Backgrounds?
Put a puddle of a couple of colors of acrylic on the paper, take something (an old credit card works) and just scrape it all over the paper, kind of blending in your colors.
Or.. use a piece of bubble wrap like a stamp, paint it lightly (just on the ridges so to speak) with acrylic, stamp in on paper.
Or.. lay on a pretty wet layer of watercolor and sprinkle it with salt (course salt like Kosher works best). Best to put the salt in kind of slotches. Watch what happens.
Or.. make a design with rubber cement, water color or acrylic wash over that. When dry rub off the rubber cement leaving your design.
More? I probably have more but that should get you started.
Darla
The collage is GORG-OUS! Lucky girl. 🙂 About water color crayons. I use them in my art journals. Usually before I use them on the page I give the pages a coat of gesso. Then I hapazardly, randomly, whatever beginning making marks on the page. After that I take a wet brush over everything and then take the crayon on the wet water color again to make it more vibrant. You just have to experiment until you find what you like. I found that wetting the tip of the crayon makes the colors brighter on the page.
Oh I miss those days…just the other day I was thinking about getting pencils out and doing a drawing…it’s so relaxing!
hi….i’m an artist!
i was here a while back and enjoyed your happy 100 list …. and then i lost you!!
but now i’ve found you again … and would love for you to stop by my blog and see the list that you inspired …
cheers ….
Love that collage, love it. I just read a novel by A. S. Byatt that has a lot of biographical info about Linnaeus, who was quite the character, to say the least. It’s called *The Biographer’s Tale.”
I love to paint with watercolor! Good luck with yours!
Lovely blog!!!
uups that is just Leigh, haha!
I am not much into watercolors (yet) but I love the watersoluable crayons..alot of the time they do have a water color appearance after adding a dab of water.. all I do is scribble on paper and then take a damp paintbrush and paint over one color at a time and then blend where needed…I do have a hard time writing over those crayons so if I wish to journal I will add a touch of acrylic paint in those places. Hope this helps! 🙂 xo
hmm
all quiet on this front
Hope you and hubby manage to find some work soon – it’s a real worry isn’t it?
Glad you’ve got plenty of advice about the watercolours, I might try some of those ideas myself with the pencils that have been rotting away on a shelf for years!