I am enjoying classes; it has been so long since I’ve taken a class!  A fellow participant from Vienna commented that the classes were loosening her up from University, allowing her creativity to flow.  It is certainly doing that for me.   As an artist, I have my comfort zones, and explore my ideas within those zones.  Sharing space or having artist friends, is a good way to learn techniques, but I have been working in a vacuum for a long time.  These classes are teaching me new tricks.

I get high checking in on the two groups I am part of, and seeing the wonderful pieces others are posting daily.  Being in the groove, so to speak, is priming the pump.  I saw my acupuncturist the other day (I’m a big baby about needles) and he was able to leave the needles in much longer because I was so preoccupied with a vision I had for some turtles to paint!

This morning Lisa Patencio offered a lovely video on a fun way to create a book-card. Being a notorious non-follower of the rules I did it my way.  I am on a honu-drawing kick. I love texture and random patterns, and working with a speed-ball roller to lay in color was a kick.  I pulled out architectural templates and added some Hawaiian words appropriate to the the images, and off I went.

I am enjoying Faber-Castell’s Pitt pens, and used them in tandem with Tombow pens, which I have used forever.  I think I like Pitt’s better, mostly because the colors stay put, whereas Tombow is watercolor and will blend.  It is all what I want for this time, now.  I wish Pitt had more colors for the fine tips (versus brushes), especially in the white — I LOVE the white india ink.  To be able to come back and do this or that and use white as a color is lovely.  I am sure that if I had a skinny nib I would do color on black with white as a reverse ink.

I started with a sheet of 100lb watercolor paper, 11×14-inches.  I added Golden liquid acrylic color with the roller, then played with my templates to locate the words I wanted in the pieces.  Then I cut them into the lengths, and began detailing the book-cards.  I loved the way the ink went darker over the plain paper then textured into a lighter hue over the acrylic.  Process above, on my first one, which was the trial.  Details below.

These are already spoken for; setting them aside for friends birthdays!

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