Tonal painting

Hey guys! How are you? I been trying to post more often here, like maybe every day, but yesterday I had a super-crazy day and all my time went in so many directions. You cannot control when your sister enters labor and you cannot control rain and not even a flood in the basement. But you can control your nerves while trying to do them all perfectly! :)

I have posted a photo with this project on Instagram, and then never said a thing about it. I know you're curious to see how that page turned out, so here is how I started.

This time, my page was blank. I was inspired by some angelical drawing and paintings I saw on YouTube and wanted to try myself and see if I can do this. In the end, the result is not as I expected, but I still love her!

This time I don't have that many photos with the process. I guess I was too absorbed into it to stop and take photos. Maybe next time, and believe me, it will be a next time! 

In no time, from those watercolor and ink splashes I ended up with this little creature on my journal page. Imagine I left my brushes and colors on the table and did my daily chore and then returned to her and started to paint again. 

But painting becomes even more beautiful when you do it between the lines, when you barely have time and there are lots of other things going on around you. Or maybe this is just me, this time I could just concentrate on this page and not thinking too much about the rest. But most of the time I love working in silence, without interruptions and all that. But who doesn't, ha? :)

Open your heart for this creature! I don't know how to call her. It has some wing, but it doesn't really looks like an angel wing, so I don't know what to say. I call it a creature, a fantastic, unreal creature of my imagination. Isn't it what we are artists do when painting? When it comes to mixed media and art journals, we create something that only exists in our imagination. 

I think this is called tonal painting, but I'm not quite sure. I just find this style very appealing. 

I did some journaling on the right side of the drawing, I felt that the page needed some explanations when I come to her later on.

Please take a moment and tell me what you think of this creature :) I would Love to hear from you!

Turn an "old" journal page into a beautiful new one!

I know you all are anxious to see the final result of the girl I've posted the other day on Instagram. The truth is that I've been waiting to draw on that journal page, as I'm waiting to paint on the rest of the pages that are not blank. I think the color splash, stencils, stamps or just cleaning the brayer makes the page more interesting and gives depth to the drawing, painting or whatever you add on. And when you work with watercolor, the colors behind show, altering the result.

Here is the page where I started to draw some flowers with a black permanent micro pen:

And I continued with a larger flower that I didn't liked so much at first, but then it started to look amazing when I added the face:

And look at it! The page already looking pretty good, isn't it?
But wait, I had to continue adding more color until I could add water to it, so here is how I did it:

Here is when I started to really really love it! Her hair growing longer and the combination with the flower on her neck and face give her a mysterious look. And the locks of hair - just a suggestion to how her hair looks like and how long is it.

But the fun is only now about to start, because this is the moment when I added water and all the colors turned to magnificent creations! Oh, how I love these ink pencils! Inktense pencils from Derwent are delicious to try. Chocolate of art supplies or maybe a chocolate cake. But to define this drawing/painting I had to make use of my neocolor 2 watersoluble crayons for the white of the eyes...

And after more layers of color on her face, I came with this result. I'm not really sure if this is it, because her hair looks a little bit incomplete, but hey, I don't want to add too much color on her hair and make it look too busy to the eye. I shall see! But for now, I just LOVE LOVE her look! 

As I said, I've used neocolor2 for the white of the eyes, which is not really white, but a light cream called light lemon yellow. In my opinion, this color has nothing to do with what you think when reading lemon yellow, it's rather a very light cream - like vanilla white - than a lemon yellow.

Well, that's is it. I'll leave you enjoy it. 

See you soon!

Much love,

Cristina

Geranium flower illustrated in watercolor Inktense pencils

This flower has a special meaning to me. After my grandfather died back in 2007, all his flowers went into my mother custody, but unfortunately most of them have died over the years. This one here is the only one left and it's again in bloom! I have painted a pot in my journal, but the reality is that the flower is sitting in a glass with water. My mother says it doesn't need to have roots to plant it in a pot with soil. Probably I will find a pretty pot for it these days, so it has a nice 'home'.

As the title suggests, I've used watercolor Inktense pencils from Derwent, using poppy red for the flowers, of course, and a combination of greens for leaves. The pot has burnt sienna and mustard painted on.

I've also heard that geraniums are good for impatient people and helps calming down those who are restless.

see you soon,

much love,

Cristina

Portrait sketch using INKtense pencils from Derwent

Today I woke up to a cloudy sky. Half of the light intensity I was expecting to see when I opened my eyes. I was tired after fighting with allergy symptoms last night that caught me up until about 3 AM in the morning. Not long after, the rain started. Clean and kinda cold air. After my husband went out for work, I said to myself that it's time to get up and do something that I really love. So I took one of my art journals and an INKtense pencil and started to draw a face. I chose to use Derwent pencils because they cannot be erased with the eraser, so I won't be tempted to go back and erase the face and start over. If I'm going to mix it up, I'll just have to move on and see if I can continue or add some gesso to cover it.

This is what I came up with after 10 minutes. I really love to sketch with colored pencils, especially if they are watercolor: when adding water, the color will blend with the area right next and the effect is gorgeous! And because I absolutely love colorful pages, I decided that I should go for some color and added all kind of INKtense colors on her face. 

Yeah, this reminds me of Fauvist style, a style that I'm drawn by a lot, and I see beautiful results even with watercolor (ink) pencils, not only with acrylics or oils. 

At this point, I wasn't sure I want to add any water to it, she was already looking stunning. But you know me, I have to go beyond my comfort zone and try something new every day, so I went ahead and added water. 

And boom! the result was amazing! I couldn't believe my eyes how gorgeous she turned out! Oh, wait, I do believe it! :)

I worked on a sketching art journal paper, so the pages are not quite suitable for watercolor, but hey, after bending a little, the page came to it's original shape in the end. And this is just a watercolor sketch, but it's one that looks amazing! That's only a reminder that i should sketch faces more often, no matter if it's watercolor, acrylics or oil pastels.

What do you think of her? I would like to read your thoughts in the comments below!

See you soon,
Cristina

Watercolor illustration of a profile woman

Lately, I find myself digging so much into illustrations and watercolor. Although I love to get messy and splash the acrylic paint on my art journal pages, sometimes I feel an urge to create some simple, fast illustrations. Why I love illustrations? Because they are fast to draw, not looking for perfection in any way, and are clean and neat. Whenever you have a very small amount of time, it's great to go for some fast watercolor sketch that drys quickly and you are ready to move on.

So the other day I posted this on Instagram:

Wasn't really sure what to do next, because I loved her so much just the way it was at first: a pencil sketch. But then I was also in the mood for some watercolor splash, so I thought why not give it a try? 

Being afraid I could mess this up, I started to add a little bit of skin tone and then another, and so on, until I got this:

And wow, it looks really good! Like I want to paint more of this! Which is what I did, but I don't have photos just yet. What I do have are a lot of other photos from the pencils sketches I did, photos that are also posted on Instagram. 

This sketch was made after a photo I found on Google searching for profile faces. It looks pretty much as the model, but maybe I'm just subjective. What do you think? The model can be found here. Please leave your comments below, I would love to hear from you!

See you soon,
Cristina

Hand-bound art journal

One of my followers on Instagram, Anne-Laure Jacquart, asked me how I bound the art journal I have posted on Instagram. The truth is that it takes some time and ability to bound a hand-book, but it's nothing very fancy, really.

The idea to make a hand-bound art journal came to me when I realized that where I live there are not so many alternatives when it comes to art journaling. This art journaling current is fairly new around here, so only recently I saw that Ranger ink pads are on the market, for example. But when it comes to art journals, there are not so many alternatives. So I decided to look for alternatives, like reusing and repurpose materials, and I found an old watercolor block I had bought long time ago....I tore the pages away and used the sheets to bind them in a brand-new art journal. (see below)

The method of binding can be found in here. It is very simple, although at first it may seem complicated. But once you get the steps, you find that all you need is time and patience. On the second page you´ll find an explication image with a diagram showing how the sewing goes. 

If you try this technique, I would love to hear from you! Please comment below or on Instagram how your final result came out and what you think of the whole process. Is it worth to bind your own art journal or buy one already bound?

Until next time,

***much love***

Cristina

A piece of Bucharest

Tonight I took the time to do some watercolor painting in my art journal. And as I did paint after a photo taken in Barcelona, I thought I should do the same painting after a photo that pictures the old city of Bucharest, using a photo I found on internet.

This is the "old town" center of the city, where all the fun and parties are at home! The photo was taken by night, on a rainy day, and you can see the people hurry to seek shelter.

It was sketched this on May 26th, but only got the chance to add some color. At first I thought I should leave it as it is, just a sketch, but then I said why not add color? I thought that even if it's not going to be perfect, I'll know I have tried. But I guess I love the result!
This is just one of the pages illustrating Bucharest, there are more to follow!

Have a great week,
Cristina