Tag: watercolor

Making Christmas cards

I started to make Christmas cards yesterday, thinking that was going to be a quick thing. Wrong.

I wanted to use either or both watercolour pencils and watercolour pens. I went for the latter.

The pens are easy enough to use. Either apply colour on paper and quickly work with a brush and water, or apply colour on a plastic surface and mix on brush with water. My paper was barely thick enough, but that will do. 

I sketched my scene, cut the elements, did the layout, drew on paper, painted cut out the elements and glued them.

Tada!

Christmas cards with red baubles 

And I continued today, with different colours.

 Christmas cards with blue baubles 

Update 12 December: I made a few more this week:

 Christmas cards with Santa and reindeer 

 Christmas cards with Santa, presents and little cabin 

I intend to create a few more and hope there is time, as it’s quite time-consuming.

Update 19 December: I made a few more today and I’m done:

 Christmas cards with Santa and reindeer; and with Santa, presents and little cabin  

Photo of all the Christmas cards I made this month 

#sketch: Jardin des plantes, Paris

Santa (Daniel DardaNoël) brought me a book on urban sketching, with a note that he wished I’d do more drawing on location. I love the idea.

I’ve always been in awe of those who master live sketching, quick sketching, those who keep a travel notepad or sketchbook to fill with notes and drawings or paintings. My friend Ann Bassetti travels with watercolour and a light equipment just to do that. She took me to a Dr Sketchy Anti Art School event in San Francisco last March. It was fun and inspiring, although I performed very poorly. But it wasn’t the point. The point is that I’ve wanted to do this for years, and I have a few notepads and sketchbooks already, and I’m glad I went with Ann last March, and that Daniel just gave me this book. This is all connected 🙂

So, I read all the book and although it says ‘go outside and sketch,’ I stayed inside and sketched. From a picture I took in Paris last October at Jardin des plantes, next to the gigantic greenhouse.

Made on paper (12×17 cm), in my Paperblanks notebook, with Pentel ink brush and watercolour.

scanned sketchbook: Jardin des plantes, watercolour and ink, made 26 December 2014

#sketches: Hiroshige’s “View from Massaki”, 1857

I drew Hiroshige’s “View from Massaki on the Grove near Suijin Shrine, the Uchigawa Inlet and Sekiya Village” (8-1857), on iPad mini again, using ArtRage.

It took a couple days, 3 to 5 hours each. Below is a big version (1536×2048).

Quoting from the Scholten Japanese Art website:

This composition shows a view towards the Suijin Shrine on the Sumida River and Uchigawa inlet as seen through a round-shaped window from the second floor of a teahouse located in front of the Massaki Inari Shrine. At left the vase with a camellia blossoms and the branches of blossoming plum outside indicates the timing is early spring, and the dark hills in the distance set the time of day nearing dusk. The season and the proximity to the Masasaki Inari shrine suggest that it may be the first day of the horse in the second month, a day associated with visiting shrines devoted to Inari.

Hiroshige's View from Massaki, 1857