Hi friends! Do you have a bit of free time this weekend? Wanna paint something easy? We are going to paint this today, it’s a great way to get some practise in and knock the rust off the brushes!
If you like this loose floral tutorial please check out my Watercolor Flower Workshop! You will learn how to paint a variety of flowers in a loose style and arrange them in pretty compositions. Click here to learn more!
Supplies (Affiliate links used)
Rosa watercolors *I bought the 12 color set but the price jumped, the 24 color set is a much better deal or I suggest the botanical set of 28 if you enjoy painting lots of flowers.
Hi friends! You don’t have to take a fancy vacation to get outside and paint. In fact you can probably find beautiful places near by to make art. Keeping a few useful supplies in a bag ready to go will make you more likly to venture outside and sketch. I decided to go through my travel art bag and see what should stay and what needs to go.
Sadly the Grumbacher bag I have is no longer made but I did find several similar stool backpacks on Amazon in the $20-$50 price range you might want to check out. The only thing I would change in mine would be to have padded straps (which I can probably make for mine) so if you are considering buying one you might want to look for that.
Portable Painter Palette: on Blick or Amazon *By far this is the best travel palette I have ever used. You fill it with your favorite tube watercolors. Winsor & Newton half pans will also fit.
I also like the viviva colorsheets with my small book and a water brush to tuck in my pocket (If my darned clothes have a decent size one!)
Other: Water bottle, rag or paper towel, chunk of wax, piece of cut-up credit card, and sunscreen
Instead of listing everything in my bag I only listed the items I would buy again. Affiliate links used where applicable. That’s all for today, happy crafting!
Hi friends! I have been a very lax blogger this week. (OK this summer but we have really short summers in Maine so I want to be outside and not at the computer LOL!) I have been working on samples for a subscription box I designed for Papercraft Society that will come out later this year and that has taken nearly all my time, well that and world watercolor month (you can see my daily paintings here) so with that I bring you my Sat Chat!
As always I film my Sat Chat on Friday so it can be up bright and early on YouTube Saturday morning, it kinda like having breakfast with friends as I chat in the comments with viewers as I sip my coffee. This week my town has “Old Home Week” and this weekend was the endless yard sale where tons of people have yard sales so I thought it would be fun to hit a few! Many of the sales were also fundraisers which were nice to support. I even found some crafty goodness including rubber stamps (a lady saw me looking at some and she said “Have I got a deal for you!” LOL!) and something that I think will make nice pencil storage, ironically the day after I finished filming my DIY pencils storage that will be up next week. C’est la vie! I think I’ll have to post a video on the fun finds, it will be a walk down memory lane if you have been stamping a while:) This evening we went to dinner at my favorite restaurant and then came home and had the delicious chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting Mr. Frugal baked me. It was a wonderful birthday!
I am going to try and blog the tutorials I have posted on YouTube but if you want to see what hasn’t made to the blog yet you can find them on my YouTube channel. Also I wanted to mention that I won’t have a sketchbook Sunday tomorrow. I will have a new lesson up in Critique Club in a few days and I will post the corresponding time-lapse to YouTube next Sunday.
Thanks for watching and til next time happy crafting!
Hi friends! Happy 4th of July! Also happening in July is World watercolor month! I’ve been posting daily art over on Instagram if you want to follow along. This was the prompt for day one “Reflections”
I thought this peeping croc and his reflection would be a fun subject!
Supplies (affiliate links used)
Gansai Tambi watercolors (affordable, I have the 24 set) on Blick and on Amazon
Paper: I am using a sketchbook my friend Rosie made out of Arches paper. You can find sheets and pads at blick And pads on Amazon but be sure to compare is this is a pricy paper.
Prismacolor pencils in various shades: Blick or Amazon
Hi friends, Today we are going to take a look at the Derwent Procolour colored pencils set of 72. This set was sent to me by Derwent for review. I was not paid for this review but I do use affiliate links in this post.
These wax based pencils had me stumped for a while, they have a strong, hard lead yet laydown very smoothly. They have minimal glare and allow me to work fast which is not what I would expect for a hard pencil. These are something a bit different and new. They range in price from $2.89 per pencils to $124 for a set of 72 on Blick which is inline with other artist grade pencils.
Let’s look at the pros and cons.
Pros:
Highly pigmented
Holds a point well and wears down slowly
Allows layering
Nice color selection
Open stock available
Blends with OMS but I don’t think it is a technique you’d use with these
Works great with sanded paper
Non-glare-great for reproduction work
77% of pencils are lightfast to 100 years (refer to chart linked above)
Opaque on black paper
Cons:
These are hard pencils, the hardest I own. This may cause issues if you have arthritis and are coloring for a long period of time
Bottom line: These are not for everyone but I think a variety of artists will like them for different reasons and some will not like them at all. I like that I can sketch quickly with them on drawing paper and create a drawing that can be scanned with no glare in a short time while other artists might want to painstakingly layer and layer. The work so well on sanded paper, they act like pastels and are very quick and easy to blend (similar to working with powder blender) but you will probably need to use fixative to build up the saturation and values you want. I think the most common fine art use for these would be to use them for sharp details and highlights the end of a drawing. I’d recommend picking up a few open stock colors that you know you would use for details and maybe some basic colors for refining edges to see if you really like them before buying a large tin, this way if you are an artist who sells originals you can select only lightfast colors. I think this will appeal more the graphic artists and illustrators who want fuss free reproductions.
I hope this was helpful and til next time happy crafting!
Hi friends! I was worried that my bottle was too small in this painting and it made my cat look huge but then several viewers on YouTube said that the only weird thing was that there was a bottle there at all because any cat would have knocked it down (and the pumpkin too!)
So true! This painting was a lot of fun to do. If you would like a real time narrated video of this you can find it in Critique Club but if you are not interested in watching and listening to me paint for over 2 hours you can catch the time lapse below:
Hi friends! How are you this week? I am good, the weather has been beautiful and I got outside a lot!
As I mentioned I have been making a lot of pizza dough. I tried 00 flour for the first time and it was really fantastic! The dough was much more elastic and easier to work with. I had several people on YouTube ask me for my recipe (me, a recipe, who do they think they are dealing with LOL!) and since I actually measured things out so I could teach a friends how to make it I have a vague idea of how to reproduce my famous pizza dough instead of my usually “let the pizza muse guide me” method.
Lindsay’s “Famous” Pizza Dough Recipe:
In a bowl dissolve 1 tablespoon each of yeast and sugar in 1 3/4 cups warm water.
Add up to 4 cups of flour, one cup at a time, while mixing. After the 3rd cup you will need to knead it by hand or with a dough hook on a mixer. I coat my hands prior yo kneading so the dough doesn’t stick.
When you begin to knead add 1/2 teaspoon of salt (it controls yeast growth for a uniform texture) and any spices you like such as garlic powder, oregano and basil.
The dough should be a little sticky but it should stay in a sooth ball. If it’s so sticky that you can’t handle it add flower a table spoon at a time until it works itself out, if it’s too dry add warm water a table spoon at a time. Humidity can effect how much water you need so it will be a bit different each time.
The dough is properly kneaded when you push your finger in the dough ball and it springs back. Place it in an oiled bowl or bag to rest for at least an hour before using. You can refrigerate it if you have leftovers or want to use it tomorrow. This makes 4 14″ ish pizzas.
If cooking this in your home oven I recommend rolling it out thin (it will puff a bit) and placing it on a cookie sheet coated with olive oil, dried minced garlic and salt. This slightly fries the crust for an amazing flavor! You can use parchment paper if you are on a diet. top it and bake at 400 F for 10 minutes. If using a pizza oven outside be sure to use the 00 pizza flour as it is supposed to handle the high heat better. Any flour is fine for home ovens tho. I’m gonna try our grill and a pizza stone next! Below is a pizza from out friends outdoor pizza oven, it was amazing!
It was so good I forgot to take a pic before I ate a slice!
And here is the other stuff I mentioned:
The cat tutorial is now up in Critique Club. It’s a real-time, over 2-hour watercolor and pencil tutorial. The time-lapse is up now on YouTube.
I borrowed a friend’s Kitchen Aid (A “kitchen aid” is a stand mixer so you don’t have to hold it and it can knead your bread dough! Like I barely have to touch it! It’s wicked cute too, but pricy. This is what they look like ) I am going to be sad I know that this exists in the world the next time I make dough by hand LOL! I’m glad we have it to make 40 pizzas worth of dough tho!
I think I might do a round up of all of the prime day things I bought and let you guys choose what to review first. Or is that weird?
That’s it for today! It is going to be a hot and muggy next few couple of days. It makes me very thankful for my cool basement art studio! Happy crafting!
Hi friends, I was looking in one of my pen cups and found a couple of ink filled water-brushes and I thought they would be fun to play with. I decided that if I did a really pastel sunset they would be great for adding tree sihlouttes to frame the painting.
What do you think? Below is a real-time step by step tutorial you can follow along with and if you like this lesson you might also enjoy my Watercolor Landscape Workshop.
