I have noticed that when I first began my monthly series - almost one year ago already (!) I managed to produce more paintings in each series. Sometimes I choose something a bit ambitious that takes more time. Sometimes I do this without due acknowledgement of the time that is available in the month. So this month, in an effort to be more sensible I decided to choose a smaller series. Not smaller in number of course, but each individual painting is smaller.  Easier to make one every day. Let's see!  

Last month I worked mostly in black and white for my Yoga Values series, so this month I feel like a bit of cheery colour. My subject is plants in pots - a very cute subject to work on. Why not join me? Don't underestimate the joy of producing even a teeny doodle of a plant in a pot on the back of your shopping list or the corner of your daily planner!

Anyway, this is how I am doing it.

I am using watercolour paper, the hot pressed kind. That is the smooth surfaced one. It is 300gsm so it is nice and thick. For watercolour, I generally prefer the cold pressed paper which has a little texture. But this series feels more like little illustrations and the smoother surface is nicer to draw on, in my opinion.  I have taken sheets from an A4 size pad and cut it into quarters to give me little postcard size paintings of about 4 x 6 inches.  (The first sheet I did in an impatient fashion with a lot of clumsy folding and scissors. Then I remembered that I have a paper slicer...)

I start with a quick pencil sketch either graphite or my favourite colerase pencils. Sometimes I go over it in black pen. Feels like making your own colouring book. Other times I will just clean up the graphite sketch a bit and darken up some of the lines. One word of warning - if you do have any lines that you want to erase do it now before you start painting. Once you layer paint over the graphite it is there for good. You can't erase it.

Yay - time for watercolour! A quick spritz of water over the palette and it leaps to life.

If the drawing needs a bit of pizzazz then it is time for coloured pencils. Only when the paint is dry of course. Draw on wet paper and you will be very sad.  Often it doesn't take much with the coloured pencils.  A little touch here and there to deepen colour in some areas, or add shadow or definition is all you probably need.

How fun is that?

I even made my first video for you! The fourth in the series is a little lemon tree. This time I added the pen after the colour for a looser more whimsical effect.

[embed]https://vimeo.com/161726464[/embed]

Now... please join my creativity crusade by sharing this with the budding artist/reluctant creator you know.  There should be some handy buttons over on the left.

If I can do it, we all can, I promise!