Bluesy Daisies

Hello all - hope you're doing okay.  Is anyone else experiencing the same time-slippage as I am?  Time feels expansive and plentiful, passing slowly, and then you look up and suddenly days have gone by in a flash.  It's weird!

I'd planned to be back with another post quite soon after my Skype's the limit page spread, but somehow here we are more than a week later.

Ah well, I'm here now with another flowery page - one that took well over a year to finish.  Not that I was working on it all that time of course!  I got part way and then other things took over and the page got shut away and forgotten about.

I work in lots of journals simultaneously, and I just happened not to open this one - the large Dylusions journal - for many months.  When I did, I found some half-finished possibilities that were finally ready to be completed.  You saw one with my hand-painted Daisy, daisy (daisy) page, and now I'm back with some Bluesy Daisies today.










This one is really best in close-up.

There are lovely textures...














... touches of shimmer, courtesy of the paint pigment, nothing added ... 














... and gorgeous, subtle pools of colour blending and moving across the texture.














This was where it had got to about a year ago - some texture paste through a Donna Downey stencil for the flowers, with additional tiny grungy square "pebbles" from a Crafter's Workshop stencil.















And all of that I'd given some soft tinting to with some Sennelier watercolour paints...

... on the petals and flowing across the page and around the texture.













When I came back to the page a couple of weeks ago, I needed to find something for the light area in the lower left-hand corner.  Maybe I'd originally had a plan, or maybe that's just the shape of the stencil.  I toyed with a couple of photos, but they weren't making me happy.














I was in the mood for something a bit more spare and spacious.  I didn't want to crowd the flowers or their leafy stems.  This simple looping of fine twine seemed to fit the bill.












I love how it casts shadows when the light hits it, so you get a bunch of extra loops!















I peeled some of the thick cardboard backing away from these Quote Chips so that they wouldn't be so bulky within the pages of the journal.














It probably doesn't matter really - there's a full thickness one on the Skype's the Limit page, and that's in the same book.













And that bark heart is pretty chunky, so there may be an impact on later pages if I'm working across the full spread.  Not to worry, it will all add to the artsy imperfection!












I must have been in a sombre bluesy mood with the original creation - all those misty greys - but now in spring I found myself reaching for some fresher greens to brighten the mood just a little.














I used some Fresco paints in watery washes, so that I could echo the "messy" colour application of the watercolours.














And I used them to add extra shading and highlighting to and around the flower heads as well as for the green leaves.







I have to confess that even with those brighter greens, most of my favourite bits of this spread are where the greys are strongest.

I even ended up softening the greens with more grey.  I guess the original impulses were making their way back to the surface!

There's some white spatter (of course) and then we're pretty much there.












How do I remember what I did a year ago, you may be wondering...

Well, at the time I was in the habit of scribbling down my processes/products on the facing page in this particular journal - so I added the new steps as I went too.

And from that I see the final layers of grey were done with Distress Crayons.  It was three weeks ago, so I'd forgotten that!











There's an airy lightness about the page which pleases me, but with a slightly wistful, melancholy atmosphere.  And that seems a pretty accurate reflection of this slightly strange limbo we're in at the moment.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I hope you're having a gentle weekend.  Stay safe, stay well and I'll see you again soon, either here or elsewhere in Craftyblogland. 








The night was so very still that one should have been able to hear the whisper of roses in blossom—the laughter of daisies—the piping of grasses—many sweet sounds, all tangled up together.
L.M. Montgomery

I'd like to share this at Art Journal Journey for Mia's lovely Flowers theme
I'd also like to join in with Anything Mixed Media Goes over at the Bleeding Art Challenge

Fungus Foray

Hello all!  I'm glad you enjoyed touring the Tiny Greenhouses.

I'm back today with one of my watercolour experiments... and it's of something you might just find tucked away in the mulch behind the greenhouse.

Cestina is always complaining there aren't enough mushrooms to be found here at Words and Pictures (as a Czech by blood, she's an avid fungi forayer), so this appears with the aim of keeping her quiet for a while!

As you know, I'm still playing with the watercolours - learning how to use them and exploring different styles, and I'm not entirely sure about these.

Even though I'm in two minds about them, I wanted to share these mushrooms in time to play along with the Handpainted theme at Moo-Mania and More.












This is a much more precise effort than my loose Watery Florals or the Two Tree Doodles.














It was fun making the attempt, but I'm not sure I'm ever going to be botanically accurate, especially as I made this species up out of my head!















I almost wish I'd left it at the earlier "sketch" stage.















There's a fresher look to it (though it was a duller day when I took these photos).  They do say one of the great risks with watercolour is overworking a painting...














... and I think I may have fallen into that trap here, losing some of the lightness of touch.














Though I must confess I like some of the detailing on the mushroom caps in the "finished" version.













I'm pleased with the stalks too - using a flat brush on its side to create the shaping and dimension, and taking those strokes down to create the first outline of the earth in which they're embedded.














I kept the background very soft and loose.  I like that the imagination fills in the gaps and shapes of what might be there.















I used the other end of one of the paintbrushes to add some grassy texture amongst the stalks.

And a touch of splatter always makes me happy, as you know.















I think some of the shading works quite well in creating dimension and shadow.










I hope you like this little foray into the world of imaginary fungi, another watercolour adventure.

Let me know what you make of it - it's always great to hear your feedback, and every comment is very much appreciated, especially when I'm daring to share these handpainted creations.  I hope you're all enjoying a restorative weekend, however you are spending it.

Každá houba je jedlá, některé však jen jednou.
Every mushroom is edible, but some only once.
Czech proverb

I'd like to share this at Moo-Mania and More where they are asking to see something Handpainted

Two Tree Doodles

Watercolour time again...  After a little Infusions diversion and a quick outing for some Distress Oxide experiments, we've moved from Watery Florals to the first of quite a lot of trees coming your way.  These were doodles playing with colours and brushstrokes, just trying to stay loose and free and not think too much.  Oh, and the people are back!

The tree was the start of this little doodle, and then I thought I'd risk putting some more of my little figures into the landscape.  (If you missed the first little people, you'll find them amongst the Mixing and Daubing.)








I like the soft colour tones here - no surprise, I suppose, given it's a variation on blues and browns.  (Bah - I haven't written the colours down again - not good practice if I ever want to try this combination again.  I'll have to waste time trying to work out what they were.)














I was very happy with my accidental brook bubbling between the moorland hillocks and grasses.














And I am enjoying the tiny people - there's a delightful tightrope walk between control and chance in how they turn out.
















It's good for me not to be completely in control!















So that's tree number one.

We're still on the large 9 x 12 Canson pad, and you've probably already caught a glimpse of the second tree I'm sharing today... it's on the same page.














This fir tree is rather large.  It takes up half the page in landscape, so it's nearly 9 inches tall.

I just had a lovely time playing with the brush strokes...














... trying to keep a fluidity and flow in the paint...















... but dropping in more colours in places to give variations in the light and shadows in the depth of the branches.

















I'm pretty pleased with the trunk too, and I think I could do a similar thing again, which is after all the point of all this playing and practising.















Altogether, this was a happy page which left me in a very serene mood.  Thank you, watercolours.  Thank you, nature.

And thanks to you for dropping by again today.  I'm detouring on to A Vintage Journey next, in a couple of days, but there will be some more watercolouring and some more Distress Oxides along soon.  Happy crafting all!

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful.
Alice Walker

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.  Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all.  But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.
William Blake

I'd like to share this at Moo-Mania and More where they are asking to see something Handpainted

Wild Grasses

Hello all!  I'm going to try to get some more posts up over the next couple of weeks.  I'm feeling very neglectful of Words and Pictures and Craftyblogland generally.

It's partly being busy with work, and partly my usual January/February hibernation tendencies which, this year, are being exacerbated by an ominous sense of the world unravelling.

My solace has been some obsessive watercolour experimentation.  The learning curve is steep enough to absorb my whole attention and distract me for a while from an outlook which, to me, seems bleak.

You've seen a couple of dabblings already, and I plan to offer up a bit of a "watercolour intensive" next week, sharing my journey.  But first I'm going to leap ahead to the most recent bit of watercolour exploration.

So today I'm sharing a journalling page inspired by a pin I found of a piece by Mandy Pattullo.









Regulars will know I'm addicted to meadow grasses, and I've been doodling them for a while now so, when I saw her beautiful work, I immediately wanted to try my own version of it.













I've had a play with pen and ink a few times in the past (check out Putting Pen to Paper for instance), and over the last few days I've also been creating a pen and watercolour tree series (more of that very soon), so this was a sideways step to combine several past experiments in a new way.











I haven't used real ephemera for my version.  My embarkation card is created with a stamp, a pencil and some paint.  As you can see, I've got some more lined up for future pages...













I'm rather pleased with the effect and, of course, it means you don't lose the lovely watercolour paper texture for the rest of the inky drawing and painting.














Even though my ephemera isn't real, I do have some other papers involved.  There are some strips torn from preserved teabag papers.













I think they add extra interest and detail to the page (and the Chai Spice tea is delicious too!)














For the architecture of the grasses I used my dip pen with a bottle of Dr Ph Martins Bombay ink in Sepia.  It's waterproof, so once it's dry, you're good to go with the watercolours.













Initially all the stems were very spindly indeed, but then I clumsily allowed a big blot to form on one.

A happy accident, as it turned out, so I extended it to the other stems.  I ended up with much more interesting stems, knotty and sturdy enough to hold up the large flower heads.












I like using the dip pen.  It's pleasantly unpredictable, so you get less uniform results than with a highly controllable new-fangled fountain pen!











I used some Sennelier watercolours to add the tiny flower heads on all the stems.  There are various shades of brown and grey... fairly reflective of my general mood at present.

But I like the overall effect, especially with the tiny splatters added over the top at the end.













And watery washes around the page give depth and allow the imagination to fill in shadowy details.














Can't do without a WordBand, altered with some alcohol ink and paint and then glued down, but also "attached" with some fine twine.













And I mounted the page (torn out of the watercolour sketchbook) into my kraft nature journal with a framing wash of Vintage Photo Distress Stain just to help it pop a little more from the kraft background.

So there's where my watercolouring has arrived at so far.  Nature has been at the heart of much of this journey - another great solace in turbulent times.  Over the next few posts, I'll aim to take you through some of my steps along the way.

As always, it's mainly so I have my own record here on my virtual scrapbook.  That anyone is here to join me for the ride is a wonderful and uplifting bonus.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I'll see you out there very soon.

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.
Eleanora Duse