Small Art

I made some small abstract watercolour pieces recently.

 

They are the size of Artist Trading Cards (2 1'2" x 3 1/2").

They would also work on the front of greeting cards.

I created them from a larger piece.

I got the idea from Ceecee.

Here is the 6" x 9" piece I cut these from.

Find Your Joy

I'm taking a free taster course from Louise Fletcher called Find Your Joy.  You can find out more about it here.

Louise works in acrylic, but there are a handful of us in this class working in watercolour.  In this first exercise, we taped off a large piece of paper and then painted ignoring the tape (i.e. as if it was one large painting).  We experimented with different mark making tools and limited ourselves to 30 minutes.  I found this exercise liberating, joyful, and lots of fun!

After I had applied a bit of paint I found myself working on the six individual squares, which turned out to be an optional second step.  I had so much fun that I may try this again and ATTEMPT to follow the instructions.

I have cut these apart and I'm undecided as to whether they are finished yet.  I'll put them away for awhile and look at them again later.

My Town 2

This is another intuitive painting that I did during the "make art time" of our local Artist Trading Card swap.  It is in a small mixed media journal, hence the stray green mark over on the left side. 

Loose Sheet Journaling

My Town, Watercolour

This is another "intuitive painting", done on watercolour paper.  

I'm trying out what Roz Stendahl calls "loose sheet journaling".  Sometimes loose sheets are just easier to work on than in a book, or sometimes there is a loose sheet of paper that you just have to try RIGHT NOW.  Inspiration is like that.  Sometimes Roz uses loose sheets or cards for a special project and makes a slip case of some sort to hold them all when the project is finished.

I have a couple of other reasons for trying this out.  Occasionally someone will see something that I've done and will want to own it.  Or, I may want to do something else with the piece (turn it into artist trading cards or bookmarks, for example).  These things are all difficult if I've done the work in a journal.  So, for work I do on watercolour paper, I'm trying this approach for awhile.  Once I've accumulated a stack of loose pages, I may bind them using my Bind it All.  I did that once with the Index Card A Day project.

The Park

I wasn't fond of this when I finished it, and I wasn't going to post it anywhere. But it kind of grew on me, and I got some positive reaction to my other "intuitive painting", Vancouver in the Rain, when I posted it on Instagram.   So, as a kind of experiment, I posted The Park on Instagram with the comment, "This one not so much", and someone commented that they liked it and could see it hanging on their wall!

Art is so subjective - fascinating!  I must say that the encouragement makes me want to experiment with intuitive painting a little more.

Vancouver in the Rain

One day I tried my hand at intuitive painting.  I'm not sure if I have the definition exactly correct, but I applied paint to the paper without thinking.  At some point in the process I think you're supposed to look at what you've done (from all directions) until you "see something" in the paint.  Then, you complete the abstract piece.  

I tried a couple of pieces, and will probably do more.  I seemed to have trouble stopping at the right time, as well as "seeing things".  I finished both of them with pen doodles.  I think this one was the most successful, although I might post the other one as well.  I'm calling this one "Vancouver in the Rain".