May 2025 Projects
Paintings, a coloring book page, and allergies
I started with a coloring book page then turned it into a acrylic marker piece on lavender colored paper. The painting turned out interesting for two reasons: As I was coloring, it wasn’t hitting until I was almost finished with it and 2, I forgot to check the inspiration drawing so I forgot the trees (until today. I might go back and add them to the painting). It took several days to complete Night Mountain because I had to stop and think about how the process was going. I kept on thinking that I should start over on a different color paper because I wasn’t sure of the lavender. In the end, I liked it but needed to crop out the paper completely so the colors would look right to me.
Then the allergies hit… so hard that I had trouble functioning for a bit. They’re getting better as it’s getting hotter and things tapering off pollinating and medicine, lots of medicine. LOL. During the last week, it wasn’t too bad and I felt the creative bug hit.
My next painting was another acrylic marker piece that took just one evening to complete. I was inspired and had the creative flow. I like the composition of this Galaxy Rocks, the rocks and water especially. The markers were nice but they don’t come in the darker colors that I like using. I do like using markers and the layering the one can do with acrylics. However, the colors seem more pastel rather than true hues and intensities. I’m going to try some of the Montana ones or get empty markers to fill myself with the colors I need.
My last painting of this month was with my favorite watercolors: Kuretake Gansai Tambi along with the Derwent Inktense Watercolor pencils. The Kuretake watercolors are very versatile - you can use them in washes to opaque colors like gouache. They even have a lovely granulating aspect to them as well that you can see in Mountain Lake Reflection.
