It's Week 31 of the 365 Days Of Art Challenge! The link up at the bottom of the post will be open all year so be sure to check back to see what other fellow creatives have made with this week's exercises. Read more about the challenge and catch up on all the previous weeks!
Without further ado, here are my 7 for this week… the good, bad, and ugly!
#211 Calligraphy practice. I know a few hand lettering people that that are also quilters. Melanie from Hello Melly Designs said practicing her hand lettering made her free motion quilting much better. More incentive on actually practicing hand lettering right? My A's look a little weird and slanted.
#212 Continue the trompe-l' ceil drawing to create an optical illusion. Use a brush pen, and vary the widths of the lines to trick your eye into seeing a 3D form. This was probably my favorite exercise this week due to the 3D optical illusion. I love my Circular Illusion quilt and I can definitely see myself designing something similar to this concept to create a 3D design. How fun would that be?!
#213 Experiment with the 'resist' technique. First, draw a pattern with pastels (which are oil-based) then paint over the top with watercolor. As oil and water don't mix, the oil pastel will repel the watercolor. I'm not really sure what oil pastels are, but I understood the concept. I ended up drawing the sun and rays with Prismacolors and colored heavily to make sure that it coated the page. Then I added the watercolor brush marks out of the colored pencil sun rays. This kind of worked, I had to use a paper towel to soak up the watercolor that sat on the sun.
#214 Add the stormy sea. This page was given completely colored except for the sea, the blue part I added. It's exercises like these that make me feel like I need art classes. I wasn't sure how to make it look turbulent like a storm was coming in and honestly, I think it looks like a hot mess. Hopefully, you have better luck than me.
#215 Today, try using pencils to create different marks. Experiment by using the side of the lead to create broader lines. This exercise is pretty self-explanatory. The only complaint I have about the book is about the paper. The paper is not really made for watercoloring, so it doesn't really absorb the water and it'll soak through the back of the pages. You can see the sea from the previous exercise bleeding through onto the page.
#216 On a dark, clear night, go outside and draw the stars. Use a white pencil on this black background to draw your constellations. I live in the city and there is just too much light pollution to see many of the stars at night. So I decided to draw the big dipper from a photo and then add in other stars. Improvising works, right?
#217 Visit a park or garden and observe people interacting with plants. Try drawing or painting quickly and loosely and don't worry too much about accuracy. It's character you are after! Obviously, my palm trees are not in a park or garden here in KC. I am actually really allergic to everything that grows so I seldom visit parks or gardens. I decided to take this page to watercolor some palm trees. I thought they turned out really well! I even added a beach ball at the bottom.
Now that we've all had a good chuckle and/or grimace, I encourage you to join in the fun and expand your creative horizons too!
Get the 365 Days of Art book here! (affiliate link)
Lorna is also releasing a new book, 365 Days of Drawing in October. I may be doing that book next year as my plans are to make more applique patterns. However, my drawing skills need some sharpening. We'll see what the exercises look like before I commit to doing the book. I'm actually surprised I'm still keeping up with this book as it is and I'm so far in that I can't stop now!
Your turn! Link up below with one or more of the exercises for this week, so exercises #211-217 for this link up!
A few reminders:
- There is no URL requirement for loading a photo, so anyone can join the fun. If you are having issues, please let me know via the contact page or comment below!
- When you link up a post, please try to support the other folks in the linky party! Let's spread the motivation and support to help everyone making progress in their own time.
- If you are making a blog post, please include a link back to my blog or grab the 365 Days of Art Challenge Button and put it on your sidebar. This way others who visit your blog can also join in on the fun!
- If you are posting to Instagram, use hashtag #365DaysOfArt and #365DaysOfArtPBQchallenge
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