Watercolor

Starting the year off right with a painting.

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

penguins
It felt so good, to set up yesterday – take my paints out, tape down the paper, fill the water – just go through the process. I’ve missed it. I’ve painted only sporadically during the holiday season. Setting up is kind of a calming.

I had no idea what I wanted to paint, I just knew I wanted to get back into it. Penguins popped into my head, and orange sunset skies. I looked online for some reference photos and found a great one tagged #penguinlove. I wish I could find the photographer of the inspiration photo. It’s so awesome, I can’t really take credit for the painting. I usually try to take my own reference photos, but there aren’t any penguins here in NY!
penguin

How’s your year starting out? Have you starting on your resolution? 🙂

Comparing last Fall’s work to this Fall

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

suntree
As I added branches to my latest illustration project, I wondered, “What was I working on last year?” I asked myself the same question at the end of the Summer and the answer was interesting. When I looked back to Summer 2014, I saw the start of my watercolor and ink style. I could pinpoint that first project where I added the ink details, and something clicked. The first couple of projects from Summer 2014 looked one way, and then a change took place.

Now, when I look back to last Fall, I see that I continued to work in that style. I actually don’t see much of a difference between last Fall and this Fall. To me, the projects are almost interchangeable.

Fall 2014
sunflowerouttakes falltree2 newfalltreefallleavesfinal

Fall 2015
boywithleaves1 watercolorinkleaves finalchangefinalrainbowfeather

But I don’t feel stagnant. I still think I’m growing and developing, and I’m happy to have found my style. Especially, after years of wondering how to find your style!

Be creative! It will super charge your senses

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

change
One of the side effects of living a creative life is your senses become super charged. Plainly stated you notice things. On a recent walk with a friend, I stopped her a few times to say, “Look at that!” Her response, “I forgot I was with an artist.” I was finding beauty in things she didn’t even notice. I mean just look at these flowers!
dahliaonwalk

I love this “stop and smell the roses” mentality. As a runner, I see things all the time that I’d never notice driving by in a car. I often stop running and snap a photo. A common caption on my Instagram is “Found during my run.” Many times these photos are inspiration for my paintings.

I’ve realized over the last year and half, how much the seasons inspire me. Here in New York, the leaves are just starting to turn. I see hints of it here and there. And I can’t wait. My recent artwork reflects how Fall is inspiring me.

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I’m already doodling Halloween stuff in my sketchbook…can’t wait to share! 🙂

I was asked to be a guest blogger :)

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

goodmorning
Hi everyone! A little over a week ago, I received a really sweet email from someone in Germany (I’m in NY isn’t it amazing how WordPress connects us?), asking if I would like to be a guest blogger. I have to share with you a part of the email. I was beyond flattered!

“You are the first person I contact for this matter. I would be honoured if you would like to attend my blog as guest blogger, and write about a learning experience, testing a new medium etc. I decided to take this step and approach you after your post about how to make a pattern in photoshop. It’s inspiring, and that’s exactly how I would like my small audience to feel when going through my blog.

I don’t wanna take much more of your time, please let me know if the idea is appealing. I don’t mind if you say no 🙂

Best wischen from Germany – you have fans here!”

Anamaria

Of course I said yes! I decided to write about painting in watercolor. Ana’s response to the topic and post was:

“WOW, thanks a lot! looks awesome and it’s great, it will help me in starting my first experiments with watercolor. Couple of day ago I bought the supplies, and I am ready to give it a try, so your post comes just in time! I always wondered how the “wet on wet” effect it’s made ;)”

Sharing feels really good! 🙂

I hope you’ll visit Ana’s blog. Here is the link to my post: Ana’s Learning Lab

Watercolor Leaf {A how to craft project}

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}
This is one of my favorite Fall projects! Give it a try and share your results, either in the comments below or on Instagram – tag me: @eileenmckenna. For convenient printable instructions – visit my Etsy shop. Supplies:
  • Heavyweight watercolor paper – I used Fluid Easy Block
  • Watercolor paints (3 colors – light, medium, dark. I used yellow, orange (or red), and brown.)
  • Water
  • Paintbrushes (1 thick, 1 thin)
  • Scissors
  • Pencil and eraser
  • Leaf or photo of a leaf (for shape and inspiration)
Steps:
  1. Trace or draw leaf onto the watercolor paper
  2. Cut out the leaf shape leaf1
  3. Erase remaining pencil lines.
  4. Wet one side of the leaf shape using a paintbrush and water.
  5. Using a brush wet with yellow paint, paint the entire leaf yellow (or a light color of your choice). leaf2 leaf3
  6. With a brush, wet with orange paint, paint the edges of your leaf. The orange will bleed into the yellow – this is a good thing! leaf5
  7. Use a thinner (and not as wet) brush and paint thin brown lines onto the leaf. (Copy the veins from your real leaf or photo.) If your leaf is still wet, the lines will bleed which creates a cool texture to the leaf. leaf6
  8. Allow the leaf to dry, then add more thin brown lines. (The dryer the paper, the less the paint will bleed.) lastleaf
When I first showed my kids my painted leaf, they thought it was a real leaf! Have fun! Can’t wait to see what you make. 🙂 Ready to get started in watercolor? Check out my new guide “Beginner Watercolor Exploration” 
  • Learn the fundamentals.
  • Practice with exercises & projects.
  • Discover a love of watercolor!
Start your watercolor journey today! Learn more here.
Beginner Watercolor Exploration Guide pdf download | how to guide beginner watercolor
Would you like to: Be creative on a regular basis and experience the joy that creativity brings? Explore mediums and subjects, in search of your thing? Learn about my new book Creative Exploration: A Six Week Process for Introducing Regular Creativity into your Life by clicking here. Creative Exploration book - Easy Watercolor Leaf Tutuorial | fall crafts | #fallcrafts This post contains affiliate links to products/brands I use and recommend. I earn a small commission whenever you buy using these links, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog! Want a dose of creative inspiration? Sign up for my newsletter “My Creative Collection” by clicking here. Learn more about the newsletter here.

Drawing what your drawn to. {feathers}

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

seagullfeathers
I didn’t even realize I loved trees until they kept popping up in my paintings and illustrations. Drawing feathers was more of an accident. I was painting a sunflower when the watercolors bled beyond the shape of the sunflower. I moved on to another version, putting this accident to the side. Over the next couple of weeks whenever I looked at this accident, I saw a feather. Eventually I added ink details to turn it into a feather. You can read more about that “happy accident” here.

Since this “accident,” I’ve draw a lot of feathers, especially over the last couple of weeks. Recently I sketched several feathers in my book. I wanted to add a color background to them, so I started over and drew more feathers on watercolor paper.

feathersinink pencilfeather

For two of the paintings I started with the simple outline of feathers, then painted the backgrounds, and a little color to some of the feathers. I added the feather details in ink after. On the third painting, I painted a feather shape with a pink, purple, blue blend and added ink details afterwards. featherstart

finalrainbowfeather

I have a good feeling my September pattern will end up being feathers! 🙂

Results of my “Assembly Line Painting” experiment. {Please vote for your favorite!}

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

assemblyfinal
I finished the four paintings that I working on in “assembly line” fashion. Click here to read more about how I approached working on these paintings.

Results: The results of the experiment are best described by this analogy: It’s like raising kids. You raise them in the same way – same environment, same food, activities, etc. but they all require different special attention and they all turn out different. And with each kid, you are a bit wiser (and more tired) so you do things differently each time – but maybe not better.

This is the inspiration painting:
bloomwave

The four painting above are numbered. Some of them were “worked” on more. For # 1-3 I used white gouache. As I worked I wasn’t sure what methods would be most successful – more details? more shadows? more white? more variation in color?

I’d love to hear what you have to say! Leave a comment and answer my poll below.

 

 

Conclusion: (Don’t all experiments have a conclusion?) Working this way, really allowed me to explore this type of painting and subject matter in more and more depth. If I had only painted one beach landscape, I wouldn’t have had the chance to try different techniques.

TRY IT! and let me know your results (and thoughts). Link to this post or if you’re on Instagram use #assemblylinepainting. Can’t wait to see! 🙂

Assembly Line Painting {an experiment}

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

assembly
I recently had some success with a fairly quick beach landscape. The blooms that unintentionally formed and looked like crashing waves was a large part of the success. I was curious if I could recreate this and decided to set up several boards (watercolor paper taped to cardboard) to paint all at once. My plan was to paint specific sections in each painting, one right after the other, using a similar process.

The process:

  1. With blue watercolor pencil, draw horizon line
  2. Paint the sky
  3. With grey watercolor pencil define edge of the water and paint it
  4. Paint deep part of the ocean
  5. Add water at edge of the deep ocean to get sucked into deep part and create blooms (crashing waves)
  6. Add finishing touches

 

As you know, I’ve set up personal painting parties before, where I get started on several paintings at once. Usually the paintings share a common theme or inspiration. But this is the first time I’ve attempted several versions of the same painting at once. Immediately I noticed that I was learning nuances or experimenting a little on each painting in an attempt to make it better. I knew from the start that they would never be identical, which is something I didn’t want anyway.

This year I’ve seen, several times, that digging deeper in a theme can lead to better results. I think the same is true here. I’m learning by painting the same thing over and over.

At this point each painting needs some special attention and some finishing touches. I’m not sure I can do this step at the same time. We’ll see. 🙂

Hoping for some “bloom” waves:
bloomwaves