Just breathe watercolor

Between my hours at work doubling this summer, more pet/house sitting than usual, and the adventure of finding more of my bio family, I haven’t had much of a chance to crochet or draw or anything. Especially not much time to actually finish a project.

A couple weeks ago I was waiting for my tire to be fixed. After a near sleepless night, I was exhausted. Stressed, overwhelmed, and anxious as well. So I took out my art journal and sketched a birdie on a tree limb that I copied from a tattoo I had seen. Over the course of the past few days, when taking a break from school and organizing/lacking, I added color to it with my watercolor pencils. Only my 2nd or 3rd time using them, so I’m impressed how it turned out.

Art journaling

I’ve seen art journals before and lots of ideas for them on Pinterest lately so I decided to start one of my own. I have 2 entries so far. The 1st: 

  

This is a little darker in the picture than it really is. I used oil pastels for the background. 2 different blues (blue & sky blue) and touch of purple. For the final touch, I used white to blend them together better. I loved the final result. I did this before bed last night. Then this morning I finished it. For the word, I just used white and purple soft pastel. There’s a hint of orange, which was a mistake, but ah well. I figured this isn’t bad for my 1st attempt at using oil pastels.

My 2nd entry I started before work this afternoon and just finished (just added the clouds and trees):

 
This time I used soft pastels for everything. This is another 1st for me. I’ve never used pastels (neither oil nor soft) before. 3 shades of blue for the sky, then white for a smoother blend and to lighten it up. For the snow, mainly white with a touch of gray and blue here and there. For the stream, I used the darker 2 blues that I used on the sky, a touch of green and outline it with gray. I thought it looked a bit too plain so I added a couple trees using a green colored pencil and a white pastel for the snow caps, and a white pastel for the clouds. 

I got the idea for this when I was driving to work after last weekends blizzard. Being in ‘Amish country’ there’s a lot of farmland. I was passing a field, covered in snow (obviously) but the snow was untouched and there was a brilliant blue stream going through it. The blue against the white, and the fact it was all pure and untouched took my breath away momentarily. I couldn’t pull over to snap a picture, unfortunately. But I decided to try and recreate it using the soft pastel set I was given by a coworker and dying to attempt.

I’m looking forward to seeing improvements with my use of pastels (and in my art in general). Any tips or suggestions are always welcome.  🙂

Nightmare Before Christmas-final

Finished the charcoal drawing I started the other night. I may try and use a bit of white paint or pastel  to brighten the moon. If so, I’ll add that picture later. For now, here we go: 

 

Edit: I did wind up doing a bit of touch up. I found my tortillons (blending tools) after I was done, go figure. So I used those to blend the sky a little better. Then used a white pastel to brighten the moon. Ran a finger around the edge of the moon to blend it w/the sky a bit.

  

The Nightmare Before Christmas

I haven’t worked on much of anything in months, unfortunately. I’m currently knitting a baby blanket for my ‘middle’ niece (my middle sister’s only babe) and I’m about to start crocheting a baby blanket for my youngest niece, my little brother’s youngest daughter.

The very beginning of baby blanket #1:

  
But that’s for another post. Tonight I started working on a charcoal drawing for the first time in years. It was supposed to be my big sister’s bday present (which I kept putting off working on..bad sister). She loves ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’. So I’m doing the scene with Jack by the moon. It’s not completed yet, I’ll post the finished version sometime this weekend. But for now, this is what I have: 

  

Crochet hook case

Here’s my newest completed project. Well, nearly completed….I just need a button. I used this pattern: one little rayndrop: Crochet Hook Case http://onelittlerayndrop.blogspot.ca/2010/03/crochet-hook-case.html
It was a little confusing to follow in 1 or 2 places, but I made do. I didn’t intend to use 2 of the same colors, they just happened to be in my stash. I had just enough white for the front cover and I accidentally made too many pockets (I miscounted and misread how many I needed to make) but all in all, I like it. I have a few sizes that I have 2 hooks for, so it’s not bad that I made extra pockets. 🙂

Olaf painting-complete

Here’s the finished painting:

It’s a little lighter than the pic shows, but I still like how it came out.

Olaf painting

I’ve only ever done a couple of paintings outside of the art classes I had to take in school, so I’m no painter. But my nieces love ‘Frozen’ so I’m working on an Olaf painting for the younger of the 2. I was originally going to do one of him snowboarding but I screwed up the background. Then I remembered his ‘In Summer’ song and new what I was going to do. It’s almost done:

This 1st one was taken while still wet and poor lighting