Month: September 2015

Art, Paintings

Bosc Pear

Shelly

Bosc Pear #boscpears #gouache #gouachesketch #watercolor #watercolorsketch #watercolors #painting #paintings #art
Pentel pocket brush pen and M. Graham and Schmincke gouache on paper
8 x 6 inches

This may be the worst, most inappropriate paper for water media. I have no idea what it is. It looks like faux “handmade” scrapbook paper. It’s got an obvious screen imprint on the surface and is embedded with pieces of plant fiber. Which isn’t awful on its own, but the surface is treated with some sort of sizing that makes it initially water repellant, and the paper itself is soft and linty and disintegrates if you add more than a couple of layers of paint to it.

It took me four attempts to get something sort of finished without the surface of the paper falling apart. Fun times!

Art, Photography

Brush Pen Fix

Shelly

If your brush pen's tip gets mushy and frayed, but there is still ink left in it, pull out the tip and reverse it.

If you use brush tip felt pens, this might be helpful. When the tip gets mushy or worn or frayed, but there’s still ink left in the pen, try pulling out the tip and reversing it. I used my bare hands, but if you don’t want to get ink on your fingers, you could use tweezers or needle-nose pliers to gently remove, flip, and reinsert the tip.

If you look closely, you can see that the tip on the right end is worn, but the tip on the left end is in pristine condition.

I remember doing this with cheap felt tip markers, when I was a kid. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to do it with “grown up” felt tip pens. (Via Roz Wound Up, a blog I a million percent recommend if you have any interest in arting.)

Art, Paintings

Green Pepper

Shelly

Green Pepper #bellpeppers #greenpeppers #art #painting #gouache #gouachesketch #watercolor #watercolorsketch
Faber-Castell Pitt brush pen and Schmincke and M. Graham gouache on 140 lb Strathmore mixed media paper
7 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches

ETA: Some day I will pretend to be a grown-up, and on that day I will work on scanning the backlog of arty crap I’ve been taking horrid cell phone photos of. I mean, for crying out loud, this one isn’t even in focus!