Sunday Sketch : crayon drawing and play with paint

I'm spending this peaceful Sunday watching Alisa Burke's wonderful e-class videos. I was first introduced to this super creative and prolific artist through Creative Courage course, signed up for her classes (with 50% off you just couldn't resist it) and have been inspired by her works and classes ever since.

Redefine Creativity is my second class with her. Her lessons really got me excited and inspired me to get some paint and have fun. This drawing is done with Sea Green (I just love how they name each color) wax crayon first. I already loved how it looked and almost left it as is but decided to go ahead and play with it (I can always draw it again if I want to). I painted over all the drawing with different shades of watercolor. I didn't think much just put water and colors on. The wax lines worked as resistance that you can still see the original drawing, just with different look and feel.



Then I put pink marker on some parts, making it pop out a bit and some little drawings behind the scene. I just couldn't help it, playing hide-and-seek with my characters becomes part of my drawing passion :)



I have to say I love the very first crayon drawing best but I enjoyed the process of putting colors on and watching colors blended and be resisted by the wax. I think I'm going to experiment more with this technique :)

This is only the first lesson I learn from Alisa. Can't wait to learn more and be inspired in the next 4 weeks :D

Watercolor painting practice

Hello my blog :) I am having problem with my eyes and cannot stay too long in front of computer screen. It's a bit frustrating that I have to work on my digital drawing at slower pace. However, I use this opportunity to work on my watercolor practice and really enjoy it. It's really art therapy. The painting above is my latest practice and the ones below are what I have so far. Remember, I 'm always on my facebook page and instagram drawing my draw everyday project. Hope to see you there!

Thanks for coming. Hope I can talk more about my new journey of watercolor painting soon.
Have a merry day!

My Artist's Date : how to make paints from flowers and leaves

Last week was quite a busy week for me. It was full of family activities as well as of creative ones. I attended 2 live workshops and two online art challenges plus I'm practicing watercolor painting!

There are so many things happening in just one week and now I have stories to write on this blog for maybe 2 or 3 weeks :).  Let's begin with my latest Artist's Date. The Date was for a live workshop with a lovely artist who specializes in painting watercolor with organic paints, the ones that made from leaves of plants and trees and flower petals. Her name is Tongkarn Samathakorn and you can look at her beautiful work at Organic Water Color page.

The workshop was hosted by The Museum of Floral Culture in Bangkok where you can learn about plants, flowers and Thai culture related to flowers.

Here are some of beautiful flower displays around the museum.

The class was held in a small cozy little pavilion in the garden. We were introduced to various kinds of flowers and leaves that could be made into watercolor paints. 

You can make pink paint from Bougainvillea,  blue from Butterfly Pea, yellow from Night Jasmine, green from Pandanus leaves, and the list goes on. How to make it is very easy.  Begin by picking the petals off, put them in a mortar, add little bit of hot water and start grinding until you see the color comes out.

This method needs time and patience. The artist has devoted her time in experimenting until she finds the right paints for her paintings and here are her works all done in organic paints.

The artist has a lot of her paintings published in books and magazines but I have to tell you that the original paintings are much much more gorgeous than the printed ones. So happy to have a chance to see them :D

And here is my attempt of organic watercolor painting.

This workshop inspires me to begin my journey of watercolor practice. If you have been following my facebook page, you may have seen some of my paintings already. After some awkward moments in front of water and paints, I think I'm beginning to fall in love with watercolor painting and I will write about this lovely journey here soon :)

Thanks for coming. Hope you have a merry creative day today :)

Draw everyday no. 54 and what I have learned

I posted this draw everyday no. 54 on my MerryDay Page the other day and immediately got a feedback from one of my followers that she liked this drawing without colors better. Below is the drawing she talked about. I forgot to take a photo of the drawing without the bracelet. (I took this photo with the bracelet just for fun :)



My first response to her comment was 'oh no, I shouldn't have posted this. I don't like it either'. I got a little worried as before this colored version, I got a lot of good feedbacks on the first line art drawing and someone actually asked if I had this piece for sale. I worried that she might not like this colored version. But then realizing that I was going back to be my old self who thought too much on little things, I pulled myself back and found good things from this little incident.

One is that I seem to be able to worry less about trying to be perfect. I didn't like this color combination but I posted it anyway.  By showing it in public and getting feedbacks, my doubt got confirmed. Although there were also some people who liked it, I knew in my heart that the colors were not right yet and I need to improve it.

Second is that it seems I'm getting more and more valuable feedbacks from MerryDay's followers who care enough to stop by and tell their opinions. I have been with my page since 2010 posting and getting some likes for each post and few comments from time to time. Now I'm getting more feedbacks and conversations in the page. I guess it's because of my everyday post of work in progress. While my followers are learning about how my art process is like, I'm also learning from their feedbacks. It's a kind of happy interaction :)

So, that's what I have learned from my little drawing. I'm going to work more on its color selection and will make it a greeting card and A4 print for my shop. It will be a wonderful addition to my new merry collection :)

Thanks for coming. If you have time, please drop a line and tell me how you like this drawing :)
Wish you have a merry day!

PS. If you just happen to be here for the first time and want to know me better, you can read my post of 'Artists around the World blog hop' here, or follow my 'draw everyday' on instagram or facebook :)

draw everyday no. 51 : Mr. Penguin and the poppy

I just got a new pen and so in love with its smoothness. It's Pentel EnerGel Tradio gel ink. The one I used is black but they also have blue, red and purple ink. The drawing I show here is one of my draw everyday project. I have already got to drawing no. 51. All the drawings are kind of everywhere right now. I will have to put them all in a proper place soon. But you can follow my everyday drawings on instagram or facebook.

The idea for this drawing really came out of nowhere. I love drawing plants and flowers. Then I thought what if I put something totally unrelated in the flower? How about penguin? It must be fun to have him holding a lollipop with fishes flying above ( I got the flying fish idea from a children's book laying beside me at the time).

I have always wanted to draw something whimsical, magical, surreal. Full of details of patterns or background. In the past, my drawings were mostly based on reality but ever since I started my 365 days I draw project and now draw everyday project, I think my drawings have gradually broken into magical realm. I love it. Drawing's getting more fun everyday :D

And here is the color version.



I have to say white paper seems to be more intimidating than kraft paper. I was a bit nervous when choosing colors. I imagined I would have more bright and colorful colors but then I changed my mind and just wanted to have the penguin and the flower popping up from green surrounding. Love how it turns out. How about you?

I used Copic markers for this drawing :) Going to draw more tonight. I told you I was so in love with the pen! :D

Book Beauty Monday : Paris in Color

Such a beautiful coffee table book for daydreaming on gloomy day like today. I'm not particularly in love with Paris but I love overall atmosphere of european classic. Old buildings, cobbled pavements, little cute shop signs, ornamental frames of windows and doors and sweet romantic color combinations.

This book is all about colors. The author/photographer divided each section by different colors. Starting from black, blue, brown, green and so on. It's full of pictures of little things, of everyday life. Simple but beautiful.

Visit this photographer's blog here and you may be interested in her other book, The Paris Journal.

Draw everyday no. 48 and Sunday Sketches

My draw everyday no. 48 and Sunday Sketches. I started this having something more mature in mind but ended up with this whimsical piece instead :P Anyway, have a merry Sunday!