Autumn colours

I must admit that these colours do not go with the season we have - winter. These are autumnal colours. However I felt attracted to these colours, so I used them. This time I took a separate piece of cardboard and swatched the colours I wanted to use. And voilà, I noticed that I have quite a broad range of yellow hues. I actually had forgotten that I owned that many yellow markers. So there is no need to buy any of that colour range. 

Another thing I learnt was that I could produce some very nice dark colours by laying green over red. 

 

Which markers to buy?

When working on this painting I was thinking a lot about which markers I do need and where I should get them. This is hilarious because I really have a lot of markers. But of course I am watching Youtube Videos about all kinds of markers which come in sets and are unbelievably cheap and have all kinds of colours. And of course it is very easy to order at Amazon - you order them and get them in two days. 

However: The only time I could not resist was when I bought of set of markers with pastel colours. In general I go to an art store, look for the colours and markers I need and buy one or two or sometimes three. I've got three reasons for that:

• it is very nice to go to an artstore, to touch and try out markers. 
• There are some marker brands which are also cheap and can be bought locally.
• I do not get a lot of markers which I will never or seldom use, I just can get the ones I need.

 

Painting with alcoholbased markers again

There are some art mediums to which I return quite regularly. Alcoholbased markers belong to that category. There are two reasons for that:

1. I have got no studio - I use my breakfast table in my living room. With acrylics, even with acrylic ink I have to be very careful not to let paint drop somewhere where I do not want it to drop - I am putting paper all over my table. When I am finished I have to be careful to clean my brushes. All that is not necessary when working with my markers. They can be put away quickly, they can be fetched quickly, and everything stays nice and clean.
2. I simply love the colours. A long time ago I was thinking that "colour was not my thing" - now I enjoy trying out colour combinations. 

 

Blue Balloons

In this painting I combined acrylic inks with acrylic markers. I hadn't used the acrylic markers for quite a while, so I had to pump them quite a lot in order to get them working again. I also decided to mix my orange colour the next time: the orange I have is a molotow marker refill and it is not quite the orange I like.

 

Three strange characters

The colours of this paintings are based on yellow, red and black. I used one yoghurt container for each colour, and put only a tiny little drop of black in its container. You have to be very careful when you are using black to tone down red - it could be that the result is a black with an almost not recognizable shade of red in it...

 

Beach at the Baltic Sea

This former diapositive (now digitalized) shows a beach at the Baltic Sea with "Strandkoerben". "Strandkoerbe" means - literally translated - beach baskets. You can sit in them and have shelter from wind, sun and even rain. 

 

Village with Church

This is another diaslide which I selected for digitalization. The reason for it was the sky - on the right side thick rainclouds are hanging over the hill, on the left side the sky is almost clear with some nice clouds. Probably the slide was taken before or after a thunderstorm.

 

Mixing acrylic inks

Color mixing with acrylic inks is hard, at least for me. I am using small yoghurt containers (as I am eating a yoghurt almost every day, these containers never disappear!), and I noticed that using separate containers for each colour makes mixing easier. However I have to keep in mind the different tinting strenghts of paints - take a wee bit of white and move that over to a red or blue, to name an example. Another one is mixing blue with red - as blue is stronger than red take a tiny bit of blue and move it over to the red. In the end it is practice, practice, practice!

 

Shades of blue

With this painting I have returned to abstract painting, this time however with acrylic inks. I used all kinds of brands - Schmincke, Lucas, and a refill for a Molotow acrylic marker. I used white also to mix some lighter blues.

 

Merman Version 2

This painting looks like it has been done with watercolours - but it hasn't. I used acrylic inks this time. You can water down acrylic inks and then apply them in layers. As acrylic inks stay dry once they have dried you can achieve all kinds of effects with layers. The only disadvantage of acrylic inks is that they dry very quickly in the palette or the container - so you have to be quick as well!

 

Merman - Version One

The basis of this Merman character was a quick pencil sketch; I then scanned that sketch and  converted it into a vektor line drawing with Inkscape. I did it in a way which allows me to make changes to the body, the tail or the arms and head of the character without having to do it all again. I then printed the lineart and tranferred it to watercolour paper. The coloring was done with liquid watercolours (or watercolour inks as they are sometimes called), using the colours cyan and chartreuse, which is a very light green. The red patches on the skin were done with alcoholbased markers.

 

Turkey creature traditionally coloured: second version

I used liquid watercolours to colour the second version of the turkey creature. I mainly used Chartreuse, which is a very yellowish green, and fir green, which is a blueish green. And I used a white inktense pencils for the eyes.

 

Turkey creature traditionally coloured - 1st version

This time I printed out the lineart version in Inkscape, traced it on my watercolour paper and coloured it with my stabilo 68 pens. In my opinion this guy has a lot more character than the vektor image. He looks quite determined and a little bit grumpy - doesn't he?

 

Turkey character: vector painting

In the beginning there was a traditional sketch inked with a staedtler pigment liner. While I was watching a course about lineart done with Inkscape over at Skillshare I had the idea of using the scanned ink sketch for doing a lineart drawing in Inkscape. I hadn't used Inkscape for quite some time so it took me some time to refresh my knowledge of this software.

I then saved two versions of the drawing - one as a lineart drawing and the other one you can see here.

 

Going wild with colours and stabilo pens

Stabilo 68 pens can be found anywhere you can buy office stuff. They are considered kids' stuff - the paint can be easily washed out of childrens' clothes and is said to be absolutely not harmful. However these felt pens can be used like watercolour brush pens (they even can be bought with brushes now!). They are dyebased, but a little mark is enough to go for a long way if you wet them with a brush. 

 

Green pumpkins

Here it was my goal to mix various shades of green using fir green and chartreuse. Fir green is an ecoline liquid watercolour made by Royal Talens, and Chartreuse belongs to the colorex line of liquid watercolours, made by Pebeo.

 

Shades of Red

This time I tried to get various shades of red by adding wee bits of black to vermillion. In some spots you can see the pure vermillion - other spots are almost black, and some other spots have a reddish brown colour. In three spots you can see what happens if the brush is loaded with more water. It was so much fun to play with paints and water!

 

Liquid watercolours: shades of blue

I set myself the challenge to use only one colour - in this case it is called "Night" and get several shades of this colour by adding white to it. The liquid watercolours I am using are called "Colorex" and are made by the French company "Pebeo". 

I know of course that true watercolour artists are not using White - they are thinning down the paint in order to lighten it. However I do not consider myself a watercolourist, just someone who likes to play with mediums. For contrast I used some orange-yellowish alcoholbased markers. 

I left the background white and saved the scanned file as a png - thus having the possibility to delete the background and add one in a colour I might think fitting. 

 

Markers and Underpainting

Alcoholbased markers are not opaque. So you can get nice shades and even several hues by underpainting, using complementary colours or greys. 

 

Castle on the Rocks

Germany is a country full of old castles, most of them in ruins, and most of them standing on some high rocks. Imagine how difficult it was to get all the bricks and stones up on the hill! 

The photo belongs to my collection of diaslides which slowly is transforming into a collection of digital files.

 

Harbour with light effect

  I use Gimp for image editing. Gimp is the open source alternative to photoshop, and - like photoshop - has got lots of filters. One group of filters are light effect filters. So far I haven't used them, but I did it with this particular photo because I thought it could do with a bit of additional something...

Deer

This is another photo out of the series of dia slides which I am in the process of digitalizing.

It was taken a long time ago by my husband. 

 

Fantasy flower

With this illustration I definitely left my comfort zone - abstract painting. It took a lot longer to finish the piece, but I intend to continue using my alcoholbased markers for similar illustrations. 

 

Arabian Stallion at Marbach

Each of the federal states of Germany has its own state stud farm. Baden-Württemberg, the federal state I was born and raised in has the stud farm "Marbach". They not only breed warmblood horses, but also Arabian horses. Here you can see one of the stallions enjoying a bit of fresh air.

 

Summer colours

 

Summer Colours Postcard
by ullahennig

Summer is definitely coming to an end. The nights are getting longer, and in a few weeks the world will become less colourful. This postcard will remind you of all the beautiful colours of summer - the green of grass and trees, the blue of summer skies and lakes to take a swim in, the red of flowers.

The design of this card is based on an abstract painting done with acrylic paint pens.

Halloween is coming!

 

Pumpkinman Mug
by ullahennig

Time definitely flies. Fall is just around the corner, and Halloween is not far away too. What about looking for something to give away to your friend or colleague? 

Alcoholbased Markers and abstract art

Alcoholbased markers are used by Manga artists and cartoonists, not by Fine Art artists. Yes, because those markers are not lightfast. You cannot and you should not hang art which is done with them on your wall because they will fade. But: you can turn your marker art into prints. That is what I do - I scan my marker pieces and use the digital files for greeting cards or even small prints. The other thing is you do not want to go too big with markers. I prefer A5 which is half the size of a copy paper. Nevertheless I am still spending more time with the painting process than I would do if I would use acrylic paints. You have to be a patient person or you have to learn to be patient!

 

House with a stepped gable

These kind of stepped gable houses can be found throughout Northern Europe. They were built at hanseatic times.

This photo belongs to my collection of diaslides which consists on one hand of diaslides which were taken by my father in the 60s and 70s of the last century, mostly as we were on vacation, On the other hand my deceased husband used to use diaslides in the 70s and 80s of the last century; these were the days of the diaslide before digital cameras appeared.

 

Playing with colours

The whole process of painting this piece was so relaxing and joyful: grabbing a marker, taking time to fill in the colour, then think about which pencil to use to do the shading - it was an almost zenlike activity!

 

Markers and colored pencils

Today is September 1st. We have a new month, so why not try out something new? The combination of alcoholbased markers and colored pencils is often used for realistic paintings, but here I combine both media doing abstract art. 

 

Stained glass with coloured pencils

I used an alcoholbased marker for the thick lines; the rest of the painting was done again with coloured pencils and odorless mineral spirit.

 

The Power of Colours

In my opinion there's a lot of energy in this painting. Somehow it looks like I am in favor of the combination of blue and orange-reddisch hues. Now, red is the colour of fire, of the sun, of heat, of lava running down the mountains. It can be agressive as well. Blue is the colour of the water, running down with endless energy. In middle age paintings a certain kind of blue was reserved to the cloak of Maria, the "regina coelis" or the Queen of the heavens, so for someone also very powerful. 

Well, I didn't sit down and plan this colour combination before I began to paint with my coloured pencils. It happened during the painting process. Maybe I felt a bit powerful because I was able to solve some private problems? Sounds very strange, I know...

 

In the Jungle

This is the third painting in a series of abstract paintings done with coloured pencils and odorless mineral spirit. Here I almost used all of my Greens. I am still learning to apply the pencils strokes very slowly and in a few layers, which means I am still learning to be patient. Not very easy for me, but I am making progress!

 

Coloured Pencils - a steep learning curve

Painting with coloured pencils needs a lot of patience. And when I say "a lot" I mean a lot. Unfortunately I am not a very patient person, at least regarding my art activities. I love to throw paint around. But on the other hand I somehow love painting with coloured pencils and so I decided to sit down and learn being patient. I decided to learn to apply those tiny little strokes on the paper till the paper can't be seen anymore. I decided to learn to focus on the spot I am actually working on. And this activity somehow appears to have a zen-like character - which I begin to find pleasing...

 

Abstract painting with Coloured Pencils

I love to paint abstract paintings. I have been using acrylic markers, alcoholbased markers, Neocolor 2 watersoluble wax crayons. Would it be possible to paint abstract with coloured pencils? Most of the coloured pencil artists I know on YouTube are doing realistic, often photorealistic art with their pencils. Photorealistic art however doesn't interest me. I prefer a photo to photorealistic art. Of course that is my totally subjective opinion. And I have to admit, that photorealistic coloured pencil artists can do wonders with their medium.

I like to brush mediums against the grain - and so I sat down and did this abstract painting. I used some odorless mineral spirit to blend the coIours, using q-tips. I am quite pleased with it, I must say. The only thing I have to get used to is the amount of time one has to put into the process...

 

Merboy

There are many artists who use watercolour for the base layer of their colored pencil pieces. So I thought why not replace watercolour with Neocolor 2 (the liquid version)? 

 

Going abstract again with Neocolor II

It is fun to smoosh paint with those Neocolor II crayons. Dipping their tips into the water creates such a vivid opaque effect. Of course it almost melts the crayons down. Some of my crayons are already halfway down; fortunately I can get the single crayons here in my favorite art shops in Berlin. 

 

Three Snakes

This painting looks like a watercolour painting, right? But it is not. I was still using my neocolor II watersoluble wax crayons, the Neocolor II, but in a somewhat different way. Instead of dipping the tips in the water I used a wet brush to take pigments from the tip of the crayons and then painted with it. This makes it look much more transparent and delicate.

 

Having fun with abstract painting

Some people think that the neocolor II watersoluble wax crayons are only for kids and not for "real artists". That may be the reason that there is not much information on the web on how to use them for "serious" paintings. 

In the last days I found out how versatile they are: You can apply them dry on the paper and then add a touch of a wet brush (the brush should not be too wet, though!); you can dip the tip into the water and get a really creamy mark on the paper; you can use the shavings as a kind of palette. You can mix colours by mixing the shavings or by applying the crayons one over the other. 
 

Autumn leaves

Well, it is August, still a summer month, but fall is not too far away. I am under the impression that the year has just flown by! 

I am still playing with my watersoluble wax crayons made by Caran d'Ache. I am deeply enjoying the luminance of the colours, and, as someone who hasn't got a studio, how easy it is to put the medium away after having stopped painting. I simply put the crayons back in their boxes, empty the water container and clean the waterbrush with clear water. Paint on my hands can simply be washed away under the running tap...

Underwater creature no 2

This underwater creature was not planned. The colour combination was not planned or tried out in Photoshop. It simply came into existence during the painting process.

I know that many artists plan their paintings very carefully. It is not that I don't find it fascinating how colour combos are tried out in photoshop or small sketches are drawn before actually starting the painting itself. But obviously I cannot get myself to do it!

 

Snake character

There are thousand videos on YouTube where you can learn acrylic painting. There are thousand videos on YouTube showing you how to paint with watercolours. But it looks like the neocolor 2 crayons from Caran d'Ache are merely looked upon as a medium for children or colorists. There are only a handful of usable videos for someone who - like me - wants to use these watersoluble crayons as a medium for painting.

So I have to experiment myself, learn which things work and which do not. In general I like experimenting - but having somebody to learn from can make things a lot easier and time-saving!

 

Mysterious underwater creature

I definitely love experimenting with my neocolors II watersoluble wax crayons. In detail experimenting means:

• apply layers of different colours directly on the paper, which can mean mixing colours directly on the paper by applying black and then for example blue;
• mix the shavings in one empty yoghurt cup by giving the shavings a gentle shake or stirring them with a palette knife
• first apply the crayons directly on the paper and then go over it with a second colour which has been created by shavings and wet by a tiny bit of water

 

Summer flowers

Everytime I use a certain medium for some time the time comes when I want to try out another medium. So I decided to give my acrylic paint markers a break and come back to my neocolor II watersoluble wax crayons made by Carandache. I use these crayons in two ways:

1. I apply them directly on the paper and then wet them. 
2. I shave them into empty yoghurt cups and drop a bit of water on the shavings.

I definitely prefer shaving and wetting them, but sometimes the crayons have been shaved - so I have to use them directly on the paper. 

In order to create a contrast I used an alcoholbased marker for the background.

 

Landscape with lake and island

This photo also was took as a diaslide in the 60s during a summer vacation. 

 

Mysterious houses

When I was doing this painting I had a certain scene in my mind: Sitting in an oriental tent and looking outside towards some mysterious buildings. I used my acrylic markers again, this time on mixed media paper. 

 

Proper Paper for Acrylic Markers

I used cardstock paper for this abstract painting with acrylic markers. When I touched the paper, I thought that it would be smooth enough for my acrylic markers and not cause any paper pillings. I was wrong. It was not as bad as it was with mixed media paper, but I had still some paper pillings.

A long time ago I had bought a box full of coated paper. It was recommended for alcoholbased markers, but I didn't use it that much. You can use mixed media paper and even watercolour paper with alcoholbased markers, the only disadvantage is that you are using more ink this way. However, with acrylic markers it is different: you not only have a lot of paper pillings but you are damaging the tips of your markers. So for the next paintings done with acrylic markers I will go back to the coated paper.

 

New Postcard on Zazzle

 

Summer Colours Postcard
by ullahennig

You can find some of my abstract paintings on Zazzle. Maybe you are looking for a postcard with summer colours, a card which will create happy summer feelings? Try that one!

Street scene in a German town

Here you can see a mixture of architectureal styles which is typical for German towns. 

 

Mountain village

I selected this diaslide for digitalization because I love the composition with the two trees and the fence in the foreground framing the focus - a mountain village with a church tower. In addition to that the photo brings back sweet memories of summer vacation in the alps.