The Art Lab, Episode 44: Gel Pen String Art

May 11, 2018November 12, 2018 | Allison

Hello, dears!

I absolutely LOVE the art we’re going to do today, but first of all… THANK YOU THANK YOU, GUYS, for all of the splendid birthday wishes. Whether it was a gift, a card, an email, or a comment, whatever it was – IT MADE MY DAY! MANY TIMES! You guys are SO SO SWEET and I am beyond blessed to call you my friends. ❤ (And yes, I am going to do a post about my gifts. 😉 But you’ll just have to wait for that, hee hee.) That thank you was way too short and small, but I’m guessing you want to see the rest of the post so I’ll stop now. BUT thank you one last time for making my birthday a wonderful day. 🙂 ❤ ❤

AHEM. Time for the art! I think this might be my favorite piece of art I’ve done for Art Lab, or at least one of my favorites! Here’s the stunning art inspiration for today:

{via}

HOW NEAT IS THAT? :O After pondering for a while, I came up with the idea of making the design into a constellation-type doodle with a watercolor background. I think the finished result looks gorgeous! Ready to start? Alright!

1. Selecting a canvas depends on your supply of both patience and time. You’ll need both for this project. 😉 If you have a limited supply of the aforementioned, I would suggest making this an ATC. If you’re bored and want to spend a while just making art, use a sketchbook page.

If you like clean white borders as much as I do, put strips of washi tape around the edge of your paper.

2. Paint a graded wash of watercolor, starting with dark blue at the top and fading into purple and then pink at the bottom.

3. Using a white gel pen, make a diagonal band of densely clustered dots across the top of the page.

4. Fill the rest of the page with dots, spreading them further and further apart from each other as you move away from the first band of stars.

5. Now for the fun (but tedious) part! Connect the dots. You don’t have to connect every dot to every other, but that’s what I did. For maximum impact, you’re going for a bunch of triangles – if an area has more than three sides, you missed a dot. Don’t cross over any lines or it will get too muddled.

6. Once you near the right bottom corner, take a break and sketch in the outline of a tree on a hill. (I should have done this before I started the stars, but I didn’t. I recommend learning from my mistake. 😉 ) Make an elongated cloud shape on a trunk, and “cut out” a few holes in the leaves and branches for extra realism.

7. Mark the sketch with a bunch of dots to connect later. Don’t do them too close together, but the fewer dots you use, the more geometric your tree will be.

8. Connect the rest of the dots.

9. Now take a black brush pen or Sharpie and color in between the lines. 😉

10. Ta-daa! Now for the great reveal…

SOOOO PRETTY!

I really love how this turned out, and I hope you guys do too! Do you think you’ll make this? If you do, I’d love to see it! Click here to see how to send it in and add it to our Art Lab gallery.

Thanks for reading, dears, and have a lovely day!

***Allison***

P. S. Not all the pictures are showing up on my computer, but I THINK that’s just the slow internet. Can you guys see everything alright?

More Poems

November 24, 2017November 26, 2017 | Allison

Hey, guys! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving if you live in the U. S. I sure did! Each of our three celebrations was delicious, and it was fun getting together with family. 🙂

Anyway, today I decided to share a few more of my poems, since you guys seemed to enjoy seeing the last ones and I seem to enjoy writing them. 😛 Again, they’re unrhymed poetry because number one, I am NOT very good at putting my thoughts into the boundaries of rhyme, and number two, I like the free, flowing feel of unrhymed poetry. Don’t get me wrong, rhyming poetry is amazing too, I’m just not good at it. XD

Ahem. I shall begin.

********

sky soup

the sky is

a bright bowl turned over,

set upon the earth,

filled with clear blue broth

and floating mashed potato clouds,

peppered with black birds.

{picture via Pinterest}

old one

skin crinkled and wrinkled

like a brown paper bag,

crumpled and creased

year after year,

until it is smoothed out,

soft and mellow from

the crush of Time’s hand,

lined with the paths

that the smiles and tears

left behind.

{picture via Pinterest}

galaxies

my eyes are galaxies

with a star for every time

they didn’t come back

and I was left again –

one star among millions

and yet alone in space.

but each time they left,

I stood up again

and swallowed my tears,

adding more stars

to my galaxies,

hoping that my eyes

would shine bright enough

next time,

that they would see this light

in the darkness

and come back for me again.

raindrops

drumming.

pounding.

whispering.

tapping.

fast free falling.

sticking without glue

to everything they touch,

but only for a time and then

moving on again,

sliding sadly downwards.

weeping

to leave everything behind.

wavering, shivering,

quavering, quivering,

collecting, reflecting,

greens and grays together.

a drop reaches

the edge of the window

and

falls

off.

talking rocks

what if

there is a rock somewhere

that watched as the world was made;

that saw its perfect beauty break

into a thousand sharp thorns;

that carried the footstep

of the first fallen humans –

and the only perfect one –

on its back;

that felt the first drop of blood shed

and will feel the last;

that was thrown at martyrs

and held by kings

look closer at the next pebble

you kick down the road,

and wonder what stories

are locked inside its silent heart.

abandoned house

blank eyes,

a dusty soul,

a cobwebbed heart.

broken teeth,

a dry mouth,

a creaking voice.

but when the breeze passes by

and lifts the tangled weeds

from the old mat in front,

you can hear the old house

still whispering, “welcome.”

orion

what would it be like

to recline among the stars,

held together with twinkling joints,

drinking big dipperfuls of the Milky Way

and conversing with

the man in the moon?

***********

Ahh, that was fun. 🙂 I hope you enjoyed reading those, dears – I’d love to hear which one was your favorite!

Which do you prefer, writing poems or stories? Poems are easier for me (mostly because they don’t have a plot, heh), but stories are fun too. 🙂

***Allison***

Photo by Gansforever Osman #culturainquieta

Art Lab, Episode 26

July 3, 2017November 12, 2018 | Allison

Yay, I’m so excited to show you this art today, guys! According to your requests, here is a tutorial for the technique I used to create the last envelope art in this post. It’s a super fun technique and the inspiration behind it is absolutely beautiful too. So let’s get started, shall we?

First of all, the…

Art Prompt:

I found this really amazing spray paint artist who has a YouTube channel called “Skech Art.” He is SO good! When I think of spray paint art I picture graffiti, but he makes actual paintings on canvases. Here’s the video:

Okay, so I could do without the unicorn (I think it kinda distracts from the gorgeous scenery), but isn’t it AMAZING?! There’s another equally amazing video here that you should really watch too. 🙂

Alright, now for the tutorial. This technique is great for lots of things, like envelope art, ATCs, or just a painting on watercolor paper, but I think it would look especially nice on a canvas. (I used a piece of white cardboard, though, if you’re wondering.)

1. You’ll need a few different colors of acrylic paint that go together well, plus white and black. I used pink, a few different shades of purple, and a dark indigo.

Paint the outer ring with your darkest color. Don’t worry if it gets a little messy, like so. 😉

2. Blend a ring of the next darkest color (like dark purple) into the outer ring you just made, overlapping the paint colors so they blend.

3. Now just keep adding new rings of color, making a gradient from dark to light. Use white for the very center. Tip: Blending works a lot better if the paint is still wet, so try to do these rings all at once instead of letting them dry between circles.

Ahh, it’s looking so pretty, isn’t it?

4. Add some long black blobs for islands to the bottom third of the picture, like so.

5. The islands kinda look like they’re floating, so we need to anchor them. Use your ugliest brush with coarse or frazzled bristles to paint some white streaks under the islands and create the illusion of water. Tip: Don’t use much paint and make sure your brush is nice and dry to create perfectly imperfect streaks.

6. The islands still need shadows to cement them into the picture. Paint some black streaks right under the islands to make their dark reflections. (Wow, that sounds scary. XD )

7. This is probably the hardest part: painting the tree. If you’re good at drawing trees, go right ahead and start painting, but if you’re not the best, like me, it might help to practice a few on a scrap piece of paper. My tree didn’t turn out quite as good as I had hoped, but you know what – that’s okay! You can always make a new and improved picture next time. 🙂 It also helps to look at some pictures of trees for inspiration.

Tip: I’ve found that it makes the branches look more realistic if they’re wider where they join the main branch and then taper to a point.

I also made a bumpy line for trees on the second island. 🙂

8. The stars are the finishing touch. Use your coarse paintbrush to splatter white paint all over your picture. Actually I should have done this part before I painted the islands, but I just painted over the black silhouettes and it turned out fine. 😉

Tip: It’s easier to splatter the white paint if you thin it with just a bit of water. Then tap the paintbrush handle on your finger to flick paint across the paper. If I do this again I think I’ll make slightly fewer stars because it can get overwhelming.

I also like to make a some twinkling stars by painting small crosses over a few of the dots.

Ta-daa! And there you have a beautiful galaxy-moonset-silhouette-ish picture. 😀

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, my friends! Do you think you’ll give it a try? If you do, I’d love to see your artwork! Click here to see how to submit in your artwork to the Art Lab blog and help us fill our gallery.

Thanks for reading, dears!

***Allison***