Good Day to You!
For Watercolor Wednesday, I am sharing a peek into my art journal. This is the art journal that I purchased from LK Ludwig this fall. You can see more pictures of the journal and the beginning pages in this blog post here.
I am continuing to work in this beautiful journal. The pages take watercolor paint quite well, which makes me reach for it when I pull out my paint.
I am using Liquid Watercolor and a no. 10 watercolor brush.
My typical process to begin looks like this:
1. I get my paint ready by removing the caps on the twelve paint cups.
2. I have a jar of water ready for rinsing my brush.
3. I turn to the next page in my art journal.
4. I get my music ready. Oftentimes, I listen to Songza on my iPhone through earbuds. There is an option for wordless music for "focusing" or "studying".
5. Without too much thought, I simply choose a color of paint to dip my brush into, and I begin painting somewhere on the page.
As you may have guessed, often I do not have a plan. Part of my process is about getting into the flow of listening, trusting, and using my intuition. Some might call this "intuitive painting".
(At the end of this post, I will share resources you might be interested in to learn more about intuitive painting.)
Next, I continue to work with the color and brush strokes I have started with.
I ended up with a watercolor mandala.
I painted around the mandala with blue paint.
I went back into the orange mandala with some more paint after it had a little bit of time to dry. Keep in mind, it wasn't completely dry, or anywhere near that state. The beauty of using liquid watercolor is the wet-on-wet effects you get when colors swirl and flow together.
I actually picked up my art journal to help some of that swirling and flowing along.
I felt drawn to keep painting, so I decided to paint the left side of the journal spread, too.
I may or may not come back to the left side to add words or collage elements, or stamps, or more paint . . . the possibilities are endless. Such is the beauty of art journaling! Wouldn't you agree?
As I mentioned earlier, I'd like to share some resources you might consider, if the idea of intuitive painting intrigues you.
Art from Intuition: Overcoming Your Fears and Obstacles to Making Art by Dean Nimmer is a fantastic book that touches on drawing and painting.
Brave Intuitive Painting: Let Go. Be Bold. Unfold.: Techniques for Uncovering Your Own Unique Painting Style by Flora Bowley is another fabulous book. The book is great to go along with Flora's Bloom True E-course.
Other recommended book and e-course combinations are as follows:
Tracy Verdugo offers several online and in-person painting workshops. Her book Paint Mojo A Mixed Media Workshop: Creative Layering Techniques for Personal Expression also stands well on its own.
Alena Hennessy has a new book coming out in December 2015.
Intuitive Painting Workshop by Alena Hennessy will guide you through a year of painting. Similarly, her online offerings can be found here.
Thank you so much for following along with the Watercolor Wednesday posts, and other art posts here on Orange Spiral Arts.
Happy Creating to You,
Briana
