I have been playing in my art journal. Sometimes it is very liberating to not try and plan too much but to have fun playing with different mediums and see what happens. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, but then I just played. It resulted in 5 art journal pages. I filmed the whole process, so I will link to the video at the end of this post.
I began with painting three barn owls in watercolour on watercolour paper. Then I started with the backgrounds so that I could play with composition and placing of the owls. When I was happy with the backgrounds I glued the owls onto the pages. I needed more than 3 owls, so I just photocopied the ones I had already painted and used those! It was a very happy day in my studio!
Chaos on my desk after I was done.
Taking pictures for Instagram.
I had a lot of fun experimenting with acrylic inks. They bleed beautifully on watercolour paper. Here I painted on hot pressed watercolour paper that I had glued in the art journal.
I also learned that acrylic ink does not bleed the same way on gessoed paper as on watercolour paper. Now I need to experiment with how it reacts on canvas. I don't think I have ever painted with acrylic inks on canvas, so I want to see how it looks and if it would be something I could use for my backgrounds.
I added a little colour with hard pastel crayons.
Playing with acrylic inks on watercolour is really fun. I don't like to use acrylic inks for the birds, because I find them really hard to control. But they are perfect for abstract backgrounds because they are unpredictable and they bleed beautifully with water.
The last page. These pages gave me so much inspiration, that I think I will go back to the studio after this and continue to paint!
And last the link to my latest video as promised. I hope you are all staying safe, and happy painting everybody!