I’ve gotten pretty good over the years at trusting my gut. Especially in business and art. My spidey sense usually works pretty well! This time…not so much.
I got an email from a company offering a fountain pen for review. What harm could there be, right? I ignore and delete these offer emails 99% of the time, they’re usually companies promoting terrible knockoffs – but I ignored that.
However I did get a project ready and didn’t let the product stop me in my tracks.
Tutorial: Trusting your art intuition
In the video you’ll see an unboxing of a Dryden Designs pen but don’t buy one! It had a myriad of issues, and when I emailed the company (givig them the chance to send a new working pen) they’ve never replied. So there’s that. I switched to my Peter Pen instead.
Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!
Before and after
Below are the color panels before and after inking:
Giveaway and new class at Teachable
Over on YouTube you can leave a comment as per instructions to enter for the free seat in the class! I’ll announce the winner in the Friday video.
*****UPDATE: The Gratitude Junk Journal class will be available for pre-reg on October 1; please do use my link; my compensation depends on use of my affiliate link.
TGIF! What a brutal couple of weeks it’s been eh? I had to find something to help get me through it and often just doodling does me a lot of good; not a ton of thinking to do, and I can still come out with something beautiful as I process thoughts about all the violence happening nowadays.
I stuck with analagous colors so I wouldn’t be fighting neutral mixes. Blending was almost entirely pencil until I got to the end – a few spots needed more contrast, since pencil on Yupo doesn’t get very dark, and a couple marker strokes helped. It was super hard to blend into mediums to get transitions though, so I wouldn’t use much Copic for something like this; I had to fight to fix some chunky marker lines.
This is the before and after…
ICYMI
In case you missed the socials this week, here you go!
Happy National Creativity Day! I saw this holiday on my calendar….and while it’s also another holiday in America (Memorial Day), I thought this would be a great day for a simple project anyone can do. So if you’re stressed about trying to come up with something to create on National Creativity Day, I’ve got just what you need!
This has got to be one of THE easiest projects ever! A little alcohol ink, a little Yupo – and a pencil. That’s it! This was inspired by a lot of people asking how my brain can “see” things like birds in this video – and I’m not really sure how to teach quite THAT much of a wild ride that happens in my head. I just….see it.
So instead I thought I’d start with…circles. We’ve all seen cute drawings with round bodies before – so turning circles into things that aren’t circles is a good step to start with! To “see” these you just need to form those objects into a round shape – like these trees below. They’re trees, but trees in reality look nothing like this…so that’s the first step in enlivening your imagination!
The trees are so simple, even for those who tell me they “can’t draw.” Just trace the outside of the circles! Make simple straight lines if you’re not confident making tree trunks. No alcohol inks? How about stamping inks or watercolors, stamped with a round sponge? Try other papers….yupo is just because I was using these bright alcohol inks. Get creative and use what you have on hand! (By the way the bleed proof white is going through testing here in my studio. I also have some other white mediums, I’m checking them on different projects as I get to them and will let you know how they do. This PhMartins really works amazing on both Copic and Alcohol inks though!)
Once you get the hang of trees – try some balloons! Or animals like birds…or chickens…or frogs…or fish. Anything cute! Think of the circle as a head-body combo for most so that only legs and arms get attached.
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
I was in an art store and had a 20% off sale burning a hole in my pocket….and since I’m always curious about interesting papers, I picked up a pad of Mineral Paper by Yasutomo. It said it’s good for lots of wet and dry media and, well….I’m putting it to the test! I’m also using a card by Anne as my inspiration today – I loved the 3 trees with a pattern in them, and wanted to use that idea.
I made 12 cards from these two sheets of Mineral Paper – I could have gotten more if I’d been more efficient. Getting the alcohol closer to the edges, as well as trimming better. Next time I’ll likely get a lot more done, but wow was this fast for a big group of cards! I used the 110lb Neenah for all the cardstock since it’s CAS…I really like the heavier cardstock on simple cards.
12 tags
I wasn’t actually planning on making tags, but when I looked at the scrap pile after cutting out the card bases, I realized those leftover strips would be PERFECT for my tags this year! I didn’t use any dimension on them, just glued the snow section on (didn’t make it smaller either)….but now it’ll just be a matter of finding wrapping paper to match or just using white so the colored trees pop on them….that might be the best way to go!
More coming
I’ve scheduled a coooool video with watercolor on this paper, so stay tuned!
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
After my recent playtime with fountain pen inks – I came across my Bombay India Ink set that’s been waiiiiiiiting for its turn for maybe a year now?! They’re less expensive than fountain pen inks, so I wanted to see if they’d react in similar ways.
The inks didn’t perfom the same (not all do) – but I’ll show you my testing process as well as try out making a background with salt that turned out like snow – just in time for holiday season, amirite!?
I added some brand new @sunnystudiostamps and torn paper to finish them off easy peasy. Punch or diecut a moon out of white cardstock and you could get a whole bunch of cards done with one background piece!
Each section of the sky on a card like this feels like a different level of snowstorm!
I hadn’t thought too carefully about where my moon would be placed in this circumstance so the lighting is off, but I’m pretty sure I can send this to someone who’s not heard me blathering on about light sources (like my cousin in Vermont!) and they’d never notice!
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
As promised, World Watercolor Month isn’t 100% watercolor anywhere except my fine art Instagram account – instead, I’ll be doing other fun things likc coloring water…in other mediums. Today? Alcohol inks plus a little acrylic!
I’d been wanting to make clock faces for a while – when I saw NARA sold round paper that was the first thing that came to mind! My problem? I bought 12″ clock parts and….10” paper. Ha! Had to go back and order the 12” – which means now I can make more round art with all this paper! So doublecheck if you want to do this project that you get the right sizes. Colors I used were Ranger’s Mermaid and Laguna for the water, and Ginger and Honeycomb for the sand.
This one was my first try at this – and I used a bunch of techniques on the sand from the Terrestrial Alcohol Ink class. I hope it inspires my students for something else they can do with those techniques!
Interested in more?
I have two classes in alcohol inks that you might find interesting:
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
