HOW DID SHE DO THAT?

Finally, a painting!!! I coated this paper with diluted acrylic matt medium. It is a very liftable surface and I think I like it better for regular watercolors than the clear gesso. The clear gesso only seems to give me good results with liquid watercolors by Dr. Ph Martin. I used a dip pen with the red ink. It dissolved in a funny way. I'm sure the coating on the paper affects this. I was expecting more like the Elegant Writer ink dissolve, but that didn't happen. Next time I will try untreated watercolor paper and see what happens. I decided to use this little travel watercolor set I put together using 6 waterbottle caps glued into an empty breathmint tin. A clever idea I read in an art magazine. I used a warm and cool of red yellow and blue. Don't like the cool yellow I put in there. I will use it up and then switch to Hansa. The yellow I used is Cad yellow light. The metal lid worked very well for mixing. I overworked part of the painting but over all it is the best effort I have done lately. I decided to do the ink drawing and then just paint and not think about how anyone else paints and just enjoy myself. It gets stressful trying to be someone else! I do want to explore the idea of ink lines incorporated into the image a little more. This is from one of the self portrait photos I took described below.



I had an inquiry from Nancy Standlee regarding my self portraits - was I looking in a mirror or using a photograph? I thought I would share my methodology with everyone. I do use a mirror sometimes, but I have been working from some photographs I took myself. Most cameras have a self timer setting which allows you to set up the camera and then get in position before the shutter releases. I found this fabulous tri-pod called a "Gorilla Pod". I have posted pictures of it taken from their website. As you can see, it is flexible, bendable, amazingly stable and sooooooo much fun. It weighs almost nothing so easy to carry around. Comes in 3 sizes depending on the size and weight of your camera for support. Using this tripod allowed me to get some more unusual angles. I just set it on the table and kept taking pictures until I had it angled the way I wanted. I bought this item in a camera store. I practically bought the store out as I gave one to all my children and my husband last December.