I'm trying to make friends with watercolors. They are so darn uncontrollable that I get frustrated when using them. But we've become better friends now that I found artist Joanne Sharpe's series of Art Sparks classes. She offers nicely-priced, project classes based on using watercolors and gouache (which was new to me). The fabric covered book above is a concertina style book with a loose and flowy look.
I made it in her Art Sparks 2: Color. Collage. Concertina. Joanne offers instruction for making the basic book and painting in it, and then leads students through adding all sorts of embellishments, including the use of paint pens and addition of pockets. It's a lot of fun.
Small art bits like the flowers and words shown here get glued into the book to add to the colorful fun.
Doodles and freeform color splashes add interest, too.
While it's not fully embellished yet, this butterfly may land on the back cover of my flowery concertina book. Actually, the fun of the book is that it can be added to and embellished at any time... it's never fully "done" as long as there's a new idea to try. "More is more" is the byword here!
This small faith-themed book is one I made in Art Sparks 1: Words and Watercolor. Never a fan of my own handwriting, I appreciate Joanne's encouraging teaching style that keeps me plugging away at writing whimsical style words. I added sari silk ribbon and a handmade boho bead to the spine of this little gem.
4 comments:
Cool to see your progress in these classes. She is a very good teacher. Especially love your last 2 photos. The watery flowers with the splatters are so pretty, and your lettering on your cover lovely. Did you make your bead embellishment?
This is GREAT…….a technique I’ve never worked with…..very impressive results Nancy
Oh Nancy, this is so good! I was interested in art through high school, and afterward, so I dabbled in all the mediums. Watercolor was the only medium that escaped my understanding. Because I like to "mess" when I create, I couldn't leave the initial strokes alone, and muddied everything when I went back to "make it better." I really admire you for what you've learned, and your lovely concertina. Of course, I also like faith journal cover. Really, all these pages are wonderful examples of your artistry and color sense. Keep up the great work!
I'm late to the party to see your blog (keep getting 'redirect' from blogger reading list, which is getting a little annoying!!!
Your watercolor work is WONDERFUL!!!! My gosh...it's not easy to work with at all..but you're doing great!!!! Very cool!
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