I am back at my painting table after a very very long time. And it feels great!
It feels creative, easy, playful and finally productive. The thing is - I LOVE digital watercolor. It gives you so many options, it allows you to cheat where you need it, you can work everywhere and your files are ready for use super quickly. I am definitely not one of these people thinking it has "less soul" or is less of anything. It's amazing.
But I also had to face an uncomfortable truth. I was just not doing it as much and I rarely just played along with ideas. The time I have been the most happy and productive with my art was when I used traditional media. Plus every sketch still started out in real pencil.
Then a free class showed up in my inbox. It's called "Absrtract Pattern Play" by Laura Horn. Laura is an artist I followed for some time and she des beautiful mixed media work, often inspired by nature.
I decided to give this one a go and it was like the light was switched on again. I was playing and messing around, I even got new media to try out. And I was having fun with it. So for now I have decided to put the iPad pencil down and pick up my brushes, pencils and pens.
The image above was one of the results after watching Laura's videos.
I even did something I have not done forever. I kept going back to a concept and intentionally varied it.
With the first versions I loved the collage leafes and the absttact background. But it was also very busy. So I re-did a background with the same color scheme and tried it again. Actually I'm not sdure which one I like better in the end, but that's not bothering me. It's just nice to approach my art like this.
If you want check it out the class as well you can find it on Laur'a website for a few more days (check out the footer - it should have a direct link): https://www.laurahornart.com/
I enjoyed myself so much, I will now take her full mixed media course next month. I'll keep you posted on results!