This month's article on Unruly PaperArts

Today my article has been published on Unruly PaperArts. This month's focus is on layering and there are already marvelous articles posted! Check out the website for more tips, tricks and techniques.

And.... do not forget to submit your work for the Readers Art Request, we have great prices this month!

Painting with watercolors in my Moleskine watercolor journal

Yesterday was a very hot day in the Netherlands. I went swimming in the morning with my sister (we do this every Friday) and I needed to go to Utrecht in the afternoon for an appointment. I took my sketchbook with me and sketched in the 'kloosterhof', near the Dom.

Today is a completely different day, it is raining, so I decided to stay in and paint all day... I am working on 3 paintings at the same time. A painting for the Wetcanvas Weekend Drawing Event and 2 paintings of irises for the Botanical and Floral challenge this month (also on Wetcanvas). The WDE painting is a pen and watercolor sketch of a blueberry bush in my Moleskine watercolor journal ( 8 1/2" x 11 1/2" in size).

This month on Unruly PaperArts - Layer on layer!

The subject  this month on Unruly PaperArts is Layer on Layer !  This month the columnists will be exploring the fundamental process of creating layers be it with a mixture of mediums or layers of the same element i.e. paper.

Please do not forget to submit an entry to the Reader Art Quest! Our July Sponsor is the Robin's Nest who have a beautiful range of speciality scrapbooking papers and embellishments. Some of the columnists will be working with a range of their texture products throughout the month and they are also kindly offering an assortment of these products as a prize for our one lucky Reader Art Quest winner valued at approx $70. 

This month I will be showing you how to create some lovely layered journal pages!

Sketches from Greece

Last week I was on vacation. On Lefkas (or Lefkada), a lovely island in Greece that is attached to the mainland by a floating bridge. We had a great time with lots of sunshine, beautiful beaches and lovely villages.

I did some sketches in my sketchbook.

A lovely cold frappé near the beach

Agios Nikitas, a village with one main street leading to the beach

Some random sketches, one laughing donkey (from a postcard I sent to my uncle) and some olives from a bread basket

We rented a cottage on a hillside, near Agios Nikitas. The winding road uphill was challenging. Especially the last part, were we had to reverse the car to take the last bend. Scary at first, but OK after a week. There was a beautiful twisted olive tree in the bend. 

Lavender

I am trying to paint in the same loose style as Jean Haines. Very difficult. I started with a wash in blues and greens as background for the lavender. Then added the flowers, but was missing something... The composition was not good, this painting is on a full sheet, but I cropped it to this size. And I finished it with a little bit of ink rubbed thru a stencil and added some text with a rubber stamp. Much better.

Painting with watercolors

This week I have been very busy. One of the projects I am working on has gone live this weekend and there was little time to paint. But, as soon as we sent out the LIVE message, I started to paint.

I purchased a book from Jean Haines, Atmospheric Watercolours and I love this book!! It gives me guidelines and tips on how to create lovely loose watercolors. This painting is made inspired by some of the images shown in the book. The size is 36 x 48 cm (14.2" x 18.9").

Yippie I won!

My colorful alcohol ink rooster won in the category Prettiest Texture in the Big Bold Beautiful Birds contest in the Alcohol Ink Artists group on Facebook. I am so happy :-). If you are not yet a member; please consider joining, we are a group of Alcohol Ink Artists sharing lovely images and techniques!