Long time, no blogging! Wow, I don't even want to know when my last post was :/
Anyway, thought I would share some new stuff I've tried lately. You are probably aware of the #12monthsofpaint initiative started up by a super talented group of ladies, Jennifer Orkin Lewis, Courtney Cerruti, Meighan O'Toole and Erika Seers. The idea is to create at least one painting a month based on a monthly theme. Knowing that sadly I'm not really a 365 day project type (look how long it took me to do 40 days of lettering O_O ), but I thought that I actually might follow thru on a one a month type commitment. What I did not expect was how much I would enjoy doing it. Not that I am in any way comfortable with paint, gouache in this instance, but it's a nice break from manipulating pixels.
Since I'm a big fan of people who know how to use it, I thought I would try gouache. I had bought some for an abandoned painted initial cap project (hey, I got up to 'G' anyway!) Two problems, I encountered... I never seem to mix up enough of a color, getting it the right consistency and just general lack of brush skills. Oops, that's 3! Oh yeah, and most importantly, NO COMMAND Z. Anyway, to counter those last 2 issues, I decided to collage it. Nothing like a sharp pair of scissors to clean up some blobby paint, not to mention, I could move stuff around before putting in place. A work around for command Z :D !! When I look back at the process, it's almost like I approached it from a vector POV. The scissors became my pen tool, cropping and masking out the errant marks. I tried to do some dry brush effects, which is kinda like how I use illustrator brushes, layering brush marks and colors. Nothing complex of course, but hopefully enough to give it some added detail and modeling.
In the end, I was fairly happy with what I did and hope I can learn more and get better. I kinda like putting them on a craft background. For whatever reason, it immediately gives it a more finished look, without having to mess with painting too much in the background...something I need to work on. This month's theme was "blue" and while I didn't really adhere to that as much in the checkers piece, I had fun anyway. Hope to stick to it and improve!