Monday, February 6, 2017

Feb 6th: How Do You Beat the Winter Blues?

Greetings!!  Here is Feb. 6th's Prompt/Challenge.  The prompt is, "How do you beat the winter blues?" and the Challenge is to use watercolors.  It can be watercolor pencils, Neo-Colors, Twinkling H20's, etc... or just straight-out-of-the-tube watercolors.  Your choice, but just use some in there, somewhere.  I used Caran d'Ache's Neo-Colors.  I put them down dry, then added water with a regular paintbrush and worked them around.  I just wanted light colors in the background... almost like a wash.




After that dried, I penciled in scallops around the outer edge.  I decided that I wanted a "window" to write stuff in, so I added scallops to create that.


Then, I used Tombow markers to fill in the scallops.  I used #'s 373 and 685.  I outlined them with the black Pitt pen, "S".  (On Pitt pens, "S" stands for super-fine.)



Using my black Pitt pen, I filled in the window, first, with all the things that help me to beat the winter blues.  (Suddenly, I'm really tired of the rain!!)  Then, I used a Tombow, #133, to put the brackets around each item.  Added the little dots, to separate each item.... and went around those and added the straight lines with the Pitt pen.  Then, with my mechanical pencil, I penciled in the block letters up at the top.  Wasn't sure if I wanted to use markers, regular watercolors or acrylics in them, but decided on acrylics.  Martha Stewart's "Pollen" yellow... a beautiful, soft yellow.  (When I see it on the Joann's site, it looks much darker and more orange!)  After all the lettering was filled in with paint, I outlined it with the Pitt pen, putting an extra-wide line on the left side of all the edges of the yellow.  Does that make sense?  So, like in the center of the "O", I thickened the line on the right side of the center, but the left side of the right-yellow part of the "O".  Anywhere there is a vertical part of the yellow, it gets thickened on its left side.  Sheesh... I don't know why that's so difficult to explain!  Please leave me a comment and ask about it, if you're confused!!  :)  I then took my white Sharpie Paint-pen with the extra-fine point and added all the markings in the scallops.  I decided to add little groupings of three dots all over the watercolor background that's outside the "window".  I thought the inside of the window was busy enough.  :)



Next week is St. Valentine's Day, folks!  (Hint-hint!)  You don't need a partner in order to have love; you only need a heart.  :)

Remember, these prompts/challenges are for the Inspired Mixed-Media, Altered-Arts Group on Facebook... please come join us there... and share your work with us!!  :)

Have a wonderful week!

  ~ Teri