The much awaited State Fair Zinnia Seeds have bloomed. As always I can't just take a few photos. So here are the ones so far. There's a BEE-youtiful surprise as well! Thank you for stopping by!
Enjoy
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The Worlds Smallest Functioning Watercolour Palette Part 1- Swatching In Part 2
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Come See My Newest Creative Inspiration. Watch Here:
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Another big lesson learned
I also learned that you should watch reviews about items like paint and art supplies before buying them online. So I'm glad it worked out that the product never arrived anyway. Because the day before they were supposed to arrive I was watching other artists on YouTube swatch out and test these shimmer paints and I was quite disappointed at what I saw. I remember saying, oh man my paints are far more pigmented, not worth $55. So I actually ordered up some more chameleon pigment powders to make more paints. My husband keeps telling me to just paint already.
I don't know about you but, it feels like I need to have everything in place and organize just right, and then it means I'll be able to create some great artwork. So far what I've learned in my decades of existence, no matter how organized or how many variations of art supplies I may have, my artwork doesn't get any better. What does make artwork get better, the act of actually doing it. Not worrying about how good you are at it or whether or not you have the perfect brand or colour or paint brush.
Enjoy this Sparkle Watch Below
This video is just an intro into our stinky fridge debate. It's called Worlds collide because when two or more of our blog subjects collide, for instance heartfully creating is intended to be a creativity art blog with tutorials and anything art related. Where as our other Vlog/blog Walking Way Overrated, primarily focuses on anything to do with our unique married life as a couple living with physical disabilities. Sometimes we just can't keep the topics completely separated so today is one of those days, I get to share the beautiful colours from my DIY Shimmery watercolours and then the other subject, our stinky fridge! Worlds Collided.
Short update on life and our worlds smallest zinnias and sunflowers. Brown thumb Gardner, that's me.
It's all about having fun and letting the water colours flow together and not worrying about making everything perfect. And in the end, I ended up with some incidental cool abstract art.
Colour is watching is a good idea simply because a lot of watercolour ones it is dried or Harden, it's so dark you can't tell what colour it really is. Even under the tube once you water it down, hence the name watercolours, you don't really get to see the true colours. Many times I've seen paint pallets and thought boring, they all look like the same color, dark! But once the person starts to switch out the colours you realize how beautiful and individual they all are.
Sit back and enjoy
Apparently this method prevents wasting of watercolour paint. I have been learning to appreciate the ability to re-wet the paint and use it to create those masterpieces.
Watch Watercolour Palette
This article is about re-organizing my new palette again. Trying to turn my 4 rows of pigment spots to 6 rows, eliminating the centre aisle. The idea to try this was from watching Kristy Rice videos. I noticed she has palettes packed full of paint colours. No need for a centre area. Will I finally get to painting with this variety of paints? Daniel Smith, VanGogh, Qor, Cotman, Winsor Newton and My handmade shimmer paints, Paul Ruben and M. Graham.
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A Sneak Peak Just before I look into how to rearrange my new metal paint palettes. Definitely, not use to these kinds of palettes after decades of Acrylic painting palettes!
Peek Here Below!
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One of my favourite flowers are… Oriental poppies of course. We have had this plant from seed to its full beauty roughly 19 years ago and it's still going strong or should I say growing strong. It's hard to take just a few Photos. Hence this beautiful Poppy slideshow with some moving pictures as well. One
A word of advice, it's good to keep a file of your own photographs of whatever subject matter you think you might want in the future or whatever inspires you. That way you don't have to worry about breaking copyright laws. And being original is always the best. Unless you're doing a study of someone else's artwork. If you do paint or draw from someone else's painting or photo ask for permission or if it's a really old painting like I did in University by Cezanne, then just make sure you give them credit. I believe the one from University it was titled "after Cezanne " and then my name. Something like that.
Watch Music Version Below
Watch Silent version Slide Show Below
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| our poppies |
Make Your Own Paint
This is about how I learned to make my own shimmer paints using Interference and shimmery/mica type pigments. As well, you will also see my transformation to a Smurf!
Of course there are many tutorials on creating watercolour paints on your own. Google them. I just want to share how I did it with as little effort as possible, without mulling. How do we learn if we don't experiment and learn from others.
The cool thing is, we can use pigments to create acrylic and oil and tempura etc. paints also. The key is all pigments need to be combined with the appropriate binder. If you want to make watercolour as in my case, you need Gum Arabic solution (more on that later). For Acrylic you can use and Acrylic gel medium, I would even mic pigment powder with anything like polyurethane, varnish, clear glues. Basically anything that can harden, cure or dry. Using pigments in resins are also used to paint with resin "paint." Then for oil paint, you can use oil binders (not an expert on oil), I think Linseed oil is part of that paint? But not sure.
I definitely use purchased paint whether watercolour or acrylic. It's just after watching others make paint and especially shimmer paints, I thought I can try that. Since I have a collection of mica type pigments, I was excited to not need to by shimmer/colour shifting paints.
💗Shimmery/Mica Interference (mermaid) And Colour Shifting Pigment Powders
Binder ingredients
💗I also used a ready made Gum Arabic binder
💗Gum Arabic (I used it in powder form)
💗Vegetable Glycerin
💗Honey (tried some but decided it made the binder too sticky)
💗Clove oil (as a preservative for the binder that must be refrigerated)
Tools
💗palette knife
💗a glass jar with lid
💗Paper towels
💗spray bottle of water
💗test paper in white and dark or black for testing paint
💗paintbrush
💗water jar for washing brushes
Watch the video to see how I started mixing pigment powder with the binder. Unfortunately, the camera overheated because it was too hot outside so I didn't complete the mixing process. Adding the binder in a bit at a time, waiting for the mixture to be like a watered down toothpaste sort of. Or kind of like Cheez whiz or sour cream, a combination between Greek and regular yoghurt texture. You can tell I like food by all the food references.😋 And then just make sure I was mixing and pressing down with the pallet knife as much as possible. Even if you think it's just mixed, there can still be unsaturated pigment particles. The more you mix, press, smoosh the powder with the binder, the better the paint will dry and be pretty darn good to use on paper.
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| Here are the half pan size paint pans |
Then let the paint basically dry out or harden. It's important to keep the lid off to let it harden. There's going to be mistakes made, and some paints may end up too wet and never really harden. You can still use them. But that's how we learn lessons. If you want to do the exact correct way to make watercolour paint using real authentic pigments and even the shimmer colour shifting pigment powders that I've used, then definitely check out the video about mowing below to see how it's done. And definitely check out lots of videos, to learn more about this process.
Please note: I do not use the proper technique for making watercolour paint simply because physically, I cannot use a device like a muller. Due to my neuromuscular disability, my hands and arms are not strong enough to even lift that thing. I just wanted to show you how it does work to some degree if you're just using shimmery powders and a pallet knife. Some pigments work better than others. Definer the pigment powders the better it seems to go..
Mulling
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How to make paints out of pigment powders the truly correct way, involves something called mulling, using a Muller. Here is what mulling watercolour paint looks like with a video on YouTube Showing how to do it correctly here at PearFleur The muller is a weighty piece of glass.
Binders are needed for all types of paint. In watercolour Gum Arabic is used in combination with water, glycerine and some use honey instead or with glycerine. I learned after to heat up the water (some recipes said to) When I did, it smelled badly and eventually it got better. Just look for recipes Watercolour Binder or I also purchased gum Arabic all ready to be used as a watercolour binder.
You enjoy this and try it out.
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Today world's collide as we not only share our daily life ( Walking Way Overrated ) cook burgers but I get to share and review the swatches from my handmade interference pigments from Let's Resin. That's the other world (HeArtfully Creating ). Join us...
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Today our Worlds Collide because this short vlog video combines both blogs, Walking Way Overrated (Our Life Blog/vlog) and my creativity blog/vlog Heartfully Creating. Craig wanted to show what we did when our key ingredient for supper broke. And I wanted to share some samples of todays watercolour learning. I spent most of the day watching/listening to Watercolour (In Canada we use the letter "u" with the "O" in words like "colour.")
Worlds Collide Part 1: Watch Below
Worlds Collide Part 2: Watch Below
Two Artist Channel Recommendations One of my favourite artist tutorial YouTube channels is Kristy Rice's and second best so far is Jenna Rainey. It's because of Kristy first of all, why I am even discussing this topic right now. She helps me to let go of all the watercolour rules I learned over 30 years ago (and why I refused to pursue that medium.) Kristy is the reason why I have now been collecting new palettes, paper and watercolour paints! She uses white watercolour paint! I had learned that was a no no. She loves using colour boldly like I do. Bold colours are not something one thinks of when one (I) think of traditional watercolour painting. I really like how fun and inspiring she is. So check her out here. I also ordered her custom brush set. Don't tell Craig, it's a surprise. He is trying to learn more too about watercolour techniques.
And Jenna Rainey is so far in my opinion, has a good sense of humour and is more traditional regarding the use of watercolour techniques. As well she has very detailed, well explained tutorials like the drawing flower lessons mentioned in my video today. It is very challenging for my way of learning. It feels almost like doing math. I am use to just drawing what I know or see but do not follow any formulas for how to draw something. Which means I may have created some large paintings, drawings and illustrations for cookbooks over the decades, but I'm not that great at how they end up. But I love creating so I try not to worry about tht. Watching Jenna's YouTube channel, is more challenging for my brain and how it works. When I say following her specific directions on how to draw the flowers for example, it literally taxes my brain. Nothing to do with her teaching, it's totally because of how I am used to learning. I have always been terrible at following very specific instructions, it's like brain overload for me. The fact that I was diagnosed with ADHD about 11 years ago, helps confirm why I feel that way. Which helps me to understand that I just learn differently it doesn't mean I can't learn. Which can be applied to all of us. We all learn differently.
Today I did get tempted to just give up and continue creating or drawing the way I normally do. But because, I like the results and and I would like to create a more realistic version of a subject like flowers. I'm going to try not to give up. So in this extremely short video clip, you can see a little bit about what I was trying to learn from her.
Paul rubenswatercolour set click here
WATCH VIDEO HERE
Worlds are colliding in this blog because not only are we dealing with the television issue, I was happily distracted swatching out new metallic watercolour paints and continuing to set up my new watercolour palette as my art supplies from Currys art supply shop in southern Ontario arrive.
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