Watercolor pencils Revisited

It is a long time since I've done anything with watercolor pencils. I've got two cardboard boxes of them, one box for red, yellow and brown pencils, and the other one for blue and green pencils.

Last Sunday I watched a video showing someone playing with pencils, and I felt so inspired that I grabbed thoses two boxes and began to draw / paint. 

It felt good to try something completely different. I used Paint On Paper made by Clairefontaine, and I loved this kind of paper. It is not as textured as "real" watercolor paper, but it still has some kind of texture to it. 

I used a deep blue marker for the background and I love how it makes the painting pop out.

I've got pencils from different brands: some Albrecht Dürer pencils, Faber-Castell, some Mondeluz and Progresso pencils from Koh-I-Noor, and one Supracolor II from Caran d'Ache (the most expensive watercolor pencil of all).

I definitely will continue to play with them!

 

Abstract art done with liquid watercolors

At the end of June we had a brutal heatwave in Germany. The temperatures in my living room went up to over 30° Celsius (about 89° Fahrenheit), and I just went into survival mode. 

Then the heat went dosed wn, and I felt like painting again. This time I used liquid watercolors. When I opened the drawer with my Ecoline bottles I noticed that I must have bought some new ones some time ago and had never used them. Well. Time to try them!

Why product mockups are so important

There are products on Zazzle with pretty mockups created by Zazzle. But there are also products which have no mockup image. One of these products are aprons. 

When I created the design for the apron AI did not yet exist, and there was only a very complicated way to create mockups using photoshop. I must admit that I had a look into that and decided it would take too much time to get anywhere near creating something reasonable.

However, with AI today, there are two ways to create nice mockups. 

• Use Dynamic mockups
• Use Chatgpt

Mockups make your product interesting for customers. Especially on such a large platform like Zazzle it is important to get the attention of potential customers, and you can do this by creating interesting mockups.

This will force you to think about your designs and your possible customers: Will gardening people love to wear this apron? 

Purple Pansy Flower Garden Apron
by ullahennig

Or will someone who obviously loves to have plants and flowers at their home love to wear it?

By the way, the upper mockup was created with Dynamic Mockups, and the one on the left with Chatgpt.

Venetian Mask - Two images, one prompt

Both images have been created with the same prompt and two different AI Art generators. The image on the left was created with the help of Nightcafe Studio, and the image on the right was created by using Deep Dream Generator. As you can see there's quite a bit of a difference between them. 

I am not sure which of the two is my favorite - there's something interesting in both of them: The serious facial expression and the way the feathers frame the face in the left image; the richly decorated mask and the smile on the face in the right image. 

Another piece of abstract art

I love trying out color combinations, and I love to experiment with adding markers to my acrylic ink paintings. In this case I used a dark blue alcohol marker for the background. 

In addition to that I tried something new: A few weeks ago I bought some Molotow Sketchers for the first time. These are water based markers. I hadn't touched them yet and decided to try applying them on some spots over the acrylic ink. It worked. 

The whole process of painting was very satisfying, relaxing and joyful. It always takes a bit of preparation - getting my table covered with newspapers, fetching the paints, the water container and the brushes - and it takes a bit of time to put everything away afterwards, but it is definitely worth it!

Using Prompt Silo

Pheeds Prompt Silo has a Prompt Builder Interface which allows you to generate highly detailed prompts by selecting specific variables from drop-down categories (e.g., subjects, artist styles, lighting, camera angles, and writing tones).

I used it to create the following prompt: 

zebras drinking water baroque chiaroscuro art

First I tried Meta AI but obviously it had some difficulties with rendering zebras and produced some very strange results.Then I used this prompt with ChatGPT and got the image. which you can see on the left side.

I then went to Leonardo AI, inserted the prompt above and Leonardo automatically changed the prompt to:

A dramatic scene of zebras with distinctive black and white stripes gathered around a serene water source, rendered in the style of Baroque art with intense chiaroscuro contrasting light and dark, the zebras' bodies illuminated by a soft, golden glow, while the surrounding environment is shrouded in deep shadows, with meticulous attention to detail and texture, the overall mood is one of tranquil elegance, inviting the viewer to step into the heart of the African savannah at dusk, with the warm colors of the setting sun reflecting off the water's edge, and the zebras' gentle movements suggesting a sense of peaceful coexistence with nature.

Unfortunately the result was not very satisfying, as you can see here:

Looking close at the zebras you will notice that something is wrong with the way they stand together. Nice landscape, nice lighting, but wrong animal bodies.

Of course I could have tried out other AI Art Generators, but I didn't feel like it. I simply haven't got the time to do it just now.

But I did learn something:

1. Prompt Silo can be a useful starting point.
2. It is fun to create with AI, but you have to check the outcome. If you have the time, try the same prompt with different AI Art creators. 

Having fun with color mixing on the paper

One way to mix acrylic inks is to mix two colors on your palette. Another way is to use a semi opaque color like yellow to put it on top of a dried darker color. Here I used yellow on burgundy red in order to create various hues of orange. I painted the background with a very dark blue alcoholmarker. I varied the direction of the strokes of the marker and this produced some kind of a texture.