As of last Wednesday, I’m officially done student teaching – so sad.  I’ll do a student teaching recap sometime soon!  There’s lots to say.  For now I’m working on finishing up the things I need to do to get my teaching license, applying for jobs, and substitute teaching.  Subbing is a lot of fun so far, but we’ll see if I still think so after working with middle school kids tomorrow.  They are the most intimidating age group by far… dun dun dunnn !!

Hope your weekend was wonderful!!  woooo =)

See Watercolor Part I here and Part II here!

Here is part III of my month of messing around with watercolors.  After I did the alcohol and cling wrap methods I started to just play around with painting and the colors… (I think I showed the first part of this in Part II.)  I came up with this…

While I was thinking about what I should do next I started painting a girl.  I don’t normally do a lot of sketching/brainstorming, and instead am usually more impulsive with my art.  I’m trying to plan things out more but it just didn’t happen here (not planning leads to a lot of dead ends.)  Maybe I will do more planning for the final watercolor piece?  We’ll see.  Anyywaayyy… here is the girl I painted:

I liked how the watercolor turned out on her hair (much more than drawing, which is definitely not my favorite) and on her top.  It’s so easy to go from light to dark gradually with watercolors, and I didn’t have much trouble with losing control of the paint like I thought I would.  Tiny details were hard, though, like her facial features.

I didn’t know what to do with her so I put her on the background I had already painted, and then had to leave and do something else for a while.  I find that I get better ideas if I take breaks and get my mind off of the project I’m working on for a little while… I usually come back with a new and fresh idea and more motivation to work on it.  I don’t know if I will use her (or this background) in my final piece buuut I’m thinking about it!

What do you think?

If you missed it, last week I started a new feature here called Medium of the Month.  Each month I’m going to pick a different artistic medium, research and explore it, and create something using that medium.  This month is watercolor (mmmmhmmm!!) and you can see my first post about it right here.  It has some information on watercolor, some techniques to try, and some watercolor inspiration.

I tried out the alcohol and cling wrap techniques… want to see how they turned out?!

This is the before & after alcohol technique…

It didn’t turn out as cool as I expected, and looked even less interesting when it dried.  I still like the effect though and see myself using it.  Well, I DID use it, when I was playing around again here:

See, around the edges?  Subtle but nice, I think.  Would you use it?

I also did the cling wrap method, which was a little strange and didn’t work very well my first try.  I found that it doesn’t work if you just lay the plastic on top and then take it off.  You have to move it around and make intentional manipulations to the watercolor.  I tried it around the edges of the alcohol test painting, in blue:

See?  Interesting & different.  I think… I like it.  Yup!

Now I’m trying to decide what I actually want to do with this medium and these techniques… ahh I don’t know!  I’ll work on it and let you know more next week =)

From now on I am going to do a new feature called “Medium of the Month” where I choose a new medium each month and explore it.  Each Wednesday I will update on my research, examples from other artists, my own explorations with the medium, and finally my process through creating a work of art.  This month is going to be all about watercolor!  We’ll see how this goes… =)

I found this great site, with watercolor paintings and examples and tons of tutorials, and immediately started looking through all of these different processes.  I think I am most excited to try the alcohol and plastic wrap methods, but we’ll see how they actually turn out!  I don’t know exactly what I am planning to do yet (I’ll share my sketches and ideas next week) so I think first I need to just play around and see how these different watercolor techniques work for me.

I love how unpredictable they seem to be…  there is some element of control but for the most part it looks like the final product is always a surprise.

Know how the masters created their work, but don’t fall into the conventions they used. They made their language. You make yours. – R. Henri

This is a painting by Ann DeLaurentis which I found at Artists’ Network.  Beautiful, right?  She says that the way she paints imitates the way she lives and partakes in certain activities, and that “the sort of painting I do is expressive, but takes intense control at the same time.”  It’s always interesting to hear artists talk about their process, and I thought this was fitting since the techniques I’m planning to use are both precise and uncontrollable.

Okay time to get started, I’ll post next week with what I’ve come up with!  =)

One artist whose work I found particularly beautiful was that of Peggy Engsberg Furlin, who does some amazing work with watercolors.

(source)

You should definitely check out more of her work here, and she also has a blog here.  Goooorgeous!

Even though most of the work I saw and loved was WAY out of my price range, there were a few things I managed to go home with =)

I got these earrings, made by Cathy Braunlin who does some very interesting work with polymer clay.  I’ve really never seen anything like it (you should go to her website here and see what else she does-so much more than earrings!) and I was lucky enough to have her explain the process to me.  So intriguing.

I also got these three tiny vases:

Unfortunately, they don’t have a website (that I’m aware of, and none is listed on the business card) but they were made by Schmidt-Marken Designs in Indiana.  They are beautiful and it took me forever to decide which ones to get, I loved them all.  Here is a photo to show the size…

Soo small!  I love them, and plan on putting tiny little flowers in them =)

A few more artists that caught my attention were Scot Schmidt, Amy Huisinga, and City Art Market. There were TONS more and a lot that I loved but who don’t have a website =(  I couldn’t believe it.

Anyway, now I want to go to any and all art fairs in my vicinity, and I’m more inspired than ever to get my act together to start producing enough art to fill a booth and apply for a spot in an art fair.  There are a couple more coming up that I hope I get a chance to go to (including Renegade Craft in Chicago) so hopefully I will be posting about those as well =)

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Hopefully you’re having a good day and don’t have TOO much snow =)  Remember to check back tomorrow!