Washing With Color: CreativeBug's Watercolor Classes

Happy summer people! I just wrapped up CreativeBug's Beginner and Intermediate Watercolor classes taught by artist Yao Cheng. I loved her rapid-fire, just-go-with-it and move on style. The pieces came together quickly, so that even if something didn't turn out great... it was easy to move on to the next thing. Here's a quick run down and a few samples of some of the work I did during the class.

In the beginning class, Yao starts with color theory, basic brush strokes and a few abstracts. In the second half she turns her focus to leaves, trees and wreaths. The abstracts were fun, but I was really impressed how she conveyed the ease of the natural subjects. I had no idea I could paint things like this! Room for improvement but I love them!

I took many art classes as a kid from an amazing artist in Jacksonville, Jennie Szaltis. She taught me to love a number of mediums including batik, but I have to say I really hated watercolor (which is so sad because really, she is a wonderful teacher/artist). I just felt like I sucked at it. It wasn't my thing. This class really challenged that assumption.

The intermediate class moved into florals, layering and landscapes. One thing that is cool about watercolor is that sometimes things look really different when they dry. The peony on the left looked miserable when I finished, but I actually kind of love how it dried. Magic!

Here's a bouquet. Again, I liked it much more once it dried. I was using some older brushes and paints so sometimes things got a little fuzzy.

This was my attempt at the all-over floral pattern. Need to work on my spacing and layout but I felt like there was a lot of potential.

Here was a layering piece. My colors got a little weird (again, old paints maybe?) but it was a cool technique.

Ok, last of all, my landscape... which brings me to the one criticism of the class. To no fault of Yao's, sometimes they've edited the video so that it sort of fast forwards through more detailed sections. I know they don't want the videos to be too long, but with Yao's quick style I found myself having to pause and back up A LOT in order to keep up as I was painting along. Food for thought.

Overall, highly recommend these two classes. I really gained a new appreciation for watercolor and I'm looking forward to playing more and practicing. (See more class reviews here and here).

Drawing & Illustration for Dummies

Continuing with my spate of recent online classes, I recently finished watching Heather Ross' Drawing & Illustration Basics on Creative Bug. In the next week or so I'm going to be posting a REALLY BIG round-up of all the online classes I've taken, but I wanted to share some of my attempts from Heather's class in particular.

Heather really focuses on drawing everyday objects so we started out with some little things little clothespins and push pins.

Next we moved on to some more complex sketches of things like flowers.

Up to this point in the class, I basically was just drawing whatever she drew, but then I diverted and started sketching some things from our backyard (I mean, it IS spring and EVERYTHING is blooming!)

In the second part of the class she focused on filling in the sketches with gouache, which is a type of opaque watercolor paint that is hard to spell. I was immediately very intimidated, because the bulk of my forays in to painting are decidedly abstract, but I soldiered on at her encouragement that "everyone can draw/paint."

SO I gave it my best effort and was mildly impressed/happy with the result! Lots of room or improvement though.

Finally, she talked a lot about making conversational artwork... again, not something I do naturally... but I loved the little painting she taught us to do of a ladybug hiding under a mushroom. Check out #cbugsketchbook on Instagram to see like 15 of my classmates versions of this... pretty freaking adorable in my opinion.

I think this class was really interesting and pushed me to attempt drawing more things that I usually immediately am like... "nope... can't draw flowers, sorry."

Unrelated to what was taught in the class, I also decided to try my hand at some brush lettering which I really loved and hope to do more of in the future. Sort of an easier (for me) way to get a calligraphic style without the frustration of bending metal nibs (curse my heavy hands!).

Stay tuned for another post coming up in which I will share my deep thoughts and general fangirl-ness from a bunch of the online classes I've taken. If you've been thinking about learning some new stuff... this post will be for you!

Here comes the snow and block printing (unrelated thoughts)

We're expecting some snow in D.C. which kind of stinks because 1. I dislike snow and 2. I was supposed to go to NYC on Wednesday... so we'll see how that goes. But, I've been waiting for an appropriate weather system to come through to finally share this:

Another technique from Pattern Camp applied to a painting I did back in 2010 during D.C.'s famed Snowpocalypse.

In addition, next weekend I'm taking Jen Hewett's Design, Carve, Print online class to learn more about hand printing fabrics. I've been going through all our previous forays in to block printing and found this fun bike Kevin had made. So I whipped that up into a repeat digitally:

For as much as I dislike snow, I'm actually working on another series of snow related patterns (go figure) so come back for that and for the results of our block printing efforts! Happy snow shoveling!

Better than Bubble Wrap?

As promised this is part two of my Pinterest Challenge entry. Sadly perhaps for you, I've decided that explaining how to make bubble wrap art is boring so really we're skipping right along to show you another piece I made a year or two back for my cousin. Let's just say, you cut out a piece of bubble wrap, tape it to some cardboard, paint and stamp. Easy.

So what's better than bubble wrap? Q-Tips of course.

When I'm mixing colors I rarely get the color I intended but I try to make it work. I learned this technique circa 1995 in fifth grade to paint an orange that I still have on my bulletin board. Fascinating, I know ;o) Here's another Q-Tip painting I did in college.

What do you think? Bubble wrap or Q-Tips?

Pinterest Challenge: Bubble Wrap Mash Up Part 1

I am terrible at waiting for a big reveal. I'm a girl that eats my dessert FIRST. So guess what!? Here's what I made for this week's Pinterest Challenge! Click here to see a bigger/prettier version.


"Quilty People"

 Ok, deep breathe, let me tell you about the inspiration now. We've been looking for a piece of artwork to put in our dining room for at least a year. We are two full-time desk job + grad school students, don't judge. Thank goodness four lady bloggers challenged me to take something I had pinned and make it a reality. Instant motivation!

Source: intellokids.blogspot.com

It all started when I saw this bubble wrap painting pinned by one of the lovely Pinterest Challenge... uh... thrower-downers Sherry from Young House Love. 

I must admit to you, internet, that I am not a bubble-wrap-painting-novice. I, much like the preschoolers on the blog this originally came from, think bubble wrap is an excellent way to create a funky, textural pattern. About a year and a half ago in the midst of the worst snowstorm ever, I made this painting, "Snowpacalypse." Get it?

ANYWAYS, in order to take my inspiration and bubble-wrap painting skills up a notch, I decided to do a mash-up with THIS pin I found last week. 

Source: ffffound.com

Beautiful colors, geometric perfection. The idea to do a mash up was ALSO inspired by another Pinterest Challenge... thrower.... downer, Emily Henderson (OMG OMG OMG). If you are familiar with her show, Secrets From a Stylist, you will know that she takes two people's styles and mashes them up in a glorious new style.

So since this blog post is officially too long (sorry, I'm just feeling so chatty), I'm just going to have to break it up. Stay tuned for part two where I show you how I turned some bubble wrap into a piece of art. Then maybe there will be a part three where I show you my other preschool-paintbrush-substitute: Q-Tips!

What do you think? Will you be trying out the bubble wrap art anytime soon? 

Multitasking Is Hard

Oh hi, internet. Happy weekend! This weekend is going to be a little rough for me so I thought I'd just pop in here to let you know. I'm working on a project for the Pinterest Challenge. Here's a hint:

Also, since it's close to the end of the semester I'm basically swamped in papers. For my research class I decided to do a little multi-tasking. So if you have three minutes and want to help shape the future of The Snarky Beagle pop on over here and take my survey. It would be immensely helpful and I'll heart you forever! Here's my second hint about my Pinterest Challenge entry.

Hopefully I'll be back Sunday to give you all the details!