The first Kitty Griffin that I’ve painted in a while! This is painted in my scheme “Dusky Sunset”, and is marked with a #1 on his felt pad, as well as being signed by me.
“Dusky Sunset” Kitty Griffin
Two New Windstones
I’ve painted two new Paint Your Own Windstones since I last made a post! Here they are, “Deepwater Dun” the Hippocampus, and “Dusky Sunset” the Rock Dragon – the first of this type I’ve ever painted.
If you are interested in a commission, please check out my Commissions Page!
Candy Stripe PYO Keeper Dragon
This week I worked on this piece – a Paint-Your-Own Keeper dragon in a very sweet and gaudy color scheme I call “Candy Stripe”. This piece has a glossy topcoat, metallic periwinkle eyes, and her stripes have been topped with interference green paint so they have a lovely shift.
I’m considering taking more pictures of the process of painting these statues and including tips that I’ve learned along the way. I thought about doing it while painting this one but the time was never quite right! Next time.
Motivation and the Ease of Not Trying
Once again, it’s been a long time. I’ve got no excuses, just the hope that I’ll get better at updating this page and increasing my art output.
I painted this watercolor picture about 8 months ago, and have recently been working hard on getting into painting Windstones again. It’s been refreshing and nice to concentrate on something productive after a year of being relatively unproductive.
Motivation is always the killer, and the most substantial wall blocking me from improving on my art. This last year has been probably one of the biggest motivation killers I’ve ever had.
My goal this year is simple. I need to practice more, plan less. I get hung up on things not being “perfect”, even though nothing ever is, and I let those hang-ups help kill my motivation because it’s just easier not to try. Watching TV is easier. Playing games is easier. If I want to improve I need to learn to motivate myself, even if it is manufactured.
Because in the long run, I love to make art. Looking back at old pieces – as flawed as they can be, and as imperfect as they are – lifts me up. I get a boost of serotonin just from seeing even the smallest improvements. Imagine how it would feel to improve in a major way! It must be achieved in small steps – ones that I may not even notice until I look back.
How do you motivate yourself to achieve things?
Bullet Journaling
At the beginning of the year, Youtube began suggesting content to me from a community of people centered around bullet journaling. I had never heard of this type of journaling despite it being around now for several years. I started watching hours of videos of people creating their lovely spreads. Most of the time people would add an element of creativity or art to them, sometimes sketching, scrapbooking or painting in their journals, which really interested me. The concept of bullet journaling first began with a fellow named Ryder Carroll, who created the system as a flexible way to organize his life. People took his idea and ran with it, and this more aesthetic way of bullet journaling was what I really latched on to.
So this year, a few weeks into January, I started one!
I did some research and ended up purchasing a journal from Archer and Olive (an A5 dot grid notebook), and it’s been one of my favorite purchases from this year. The process of planning and setting up spreads is shockingly relaxing, and the addition of creative elements is really up my alley. One of my goals this year is to make art every day, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. The idea is to keep the momentum going, and stay practicing, which can mean a large art piece or a small sketch. This journal has been very helpful for keeping up with this goal, not only because I am able to actually keep track of the days that I create art, but because I often do it in this very book.
Below are some of the pages I have done. I’ve had to stop myself from going too far ahead in the year, since I’m already planning pages for the month of April! I think one month ahead is fine, but any more than that and I’ll just be robbing myself of the fun of creating these pages in the future.
I plan each page in pencil, then go over it in pen and add color using marker or watercolor. I enjoy the idea of planning each month with a theme in mind, so February ended up being succulents. I wanted to add gold to each page in the month which I did so with a gold pen and a touch of gold watercolor.
April (which I am planning now) has a coffee shop theme. I have been interested in trying to paint buildings for a while now so that was a good starting point to practice looking at references and taking elements from different images to create a single building.
The painting on the left was created on Arches watercolor paper and using various watercolors (mostly Holbein). I painted it knowing I was not going to outline anything in black as I usually do, because I wanted it to have a softer look. The painting on the right is the cover page for April in my bullet journal, and is using the same types of watercolors but was painted directly on the journal’s pages. The paper reacts much differently, and cannot take much water, but I really enjoy the look that it has. I may even prefer it over the one that I used my nice paper for!
All in all, I’m really enjoying the process of bullet journaling. Do you do any type of journaling? If so, do you prefer a more straightforward approach with writing only? Do you have a favorite way to set up your journal? I’d love to hear new ideas!