Beginning of February: Gosh it's cold!

Hello again! How did January treat you this year? I guess it shouldn't be a surprise, but for me January was a blur! I'm really hoping that February settles down more and I'm taking steps to helping make that happen. This post has a lot of updates: new extra-curricular activities, a completed certificate, mental health, and of course paintings!

Free Time?

A lot of changes have happened this year already in my family, a lot of which you already know about, but my husband and I, in our infinite wisdom and vast storage of free time (wait, what?),  have decided to put our girls into Girl Guides this year. Oh man, what am I thinking?!

I'm actually really pleased with the group, my husband's family grew up with it and his mom is still very active, so there's a lot to say about it. And I'm sure my girls are going to get a lot out of it (and maybe even me too). But when I consider the time commitment for this thing - let's just say there's a great big red hand-print mark on my face from epic face-palm I self-delivered. However...I do think it will be an amazing adventure for the kids and as a mom I really want to give that to them, so...yeah.

Certificate Complete!

In other news! I completed my first Learning Path certificate through Lynda.com (woohoo!)! I just want to say for the record that the courses on Lynda.com are incredible. They took longer to complete than I expected but I was trying to get as much out of them as possible. If you are thinking of signing up for any reason, I recommend giving it a try for a month if you can, I don't think you'll regret it!

So, since I've completed that course-set I'm onto my next set which is all about logo design. I'm very excited about this! I hope to have this course done this week and if everything goes the way I'm thinking it will, then I will start applying for freelance work by mid-February! Very exciting!! Oh, if you have a need for a logo and you're on a tight budget, send me a message. This isn't my first course in logo design, I just want to be better at it.

Gaining Focus

Do you meditate at all? I've come to it off and on over the course of my life so far and I've always enjoyed it. I usually find that when I'm really stressed (when I need it most) is when it drops off my routine and then it takes awhile to get back to it. But now with smart phones and tablets having access to apps galore there's so many more options for guided meditations and just sound meditations!

Just last night I downloaded a meditation with Tibetan bowl chimes. I tried it out this morning and while it isn't perfect, I can't complain for the price (free) and I did feel much calmer and more focused afterward, which was the goal. I truly need the days to stop whooshing past me and I'm thinking that 5 min/day should definitely help!

Painting Practice

I want you to know that I haven't neglected my art at all during all this hurley-burley either. I've been practicing my negative painting as promised and I'm not too dis-satisfied with my results so far. I'm not sure if I will reach my goal of having one finished painting by March, but we'll see. I'm trying to be methodical about this learning because I really want to learn as much as I can about painting in this way. I'm drawn to the way it looks and feels and it's important to me to feel like I've mastered something for once!

Here's my progress so far:

After some online research of other artists and how they
approach negative painting in watercolour, this is what I did.

I wanted to play around with the idea a little so I tried
out this concept. Not entirely sure I pulled it off.

Then I went through my photos and found a tropical fruit tree that
looked promising so I setup a composition and tried out my
knowledge so far. This is a step or two beyond an
underpainting (with some detail starting to take shape).

And this is where I decided to stop for this experiment. I could
have gone further but I didn't want this to be a finished
piece, more of a lesson. I like a lot of what happened here though!

And this is what's on my desk right now. This is an underpainting, with
only a vague placement of colour to give some idea of where I
want to go with the piece. The subject is the same as above, but I
switched out the violet paint for blue and I'm adding more
textural effects with alcohol and water drops.

I'm not sure how this experiment will turn out, but that's part of the fun of it! After I posted my last piece there were a lot of requests for a video tutorial or some sort of demonstration - I'm not sure I'm ready for that just yet but I will keep the idea in mind for the future. For now I will make an effort to post pictures of each stage as I do it so you can get a better idea of what's happening.

And that's all for this post! Thank you for taking the time to sit with me. I hope your next few weeks go well. My birthday is this Friday so I have that to look forward to too!

Have a good one my friend!

Until next time,

Mandy

If you'd like to see more of my work or keep up with me day-to-day you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook.

If you're interested in commissioning me or working with me for graphic work, click here to be taken to my Contact page to send me an email or message me from my social media links above, I'd be happy to answer any questions :)

End of January: Progress isn't always pretty

Hello! Is it as gloomy where you are as it is here? So far, I have to say that the weather we've had this January has been less than optimal, we've had a lot of overcast sky, rain, and ice - not even good weather for winter activities! I'm feeling very starved for sunlight!

Temptations

So, we've made it to the last week of January for the year - how are you coming along with your resolutions? I'm still plugging away at mine and things still seem on track, even with the last minute changes from a few weeks ago. One of the things I learned last year was that being a full-time mom means that, at most, you can do part-time school/work and pretty much nothing else. You have to be extremely focused so you can get what you want/need done and not go insane!

The reason I bring this up is that my focus has been tested frequently the last few weeks with all the deals on online art classes and such (I had another one today!). They are so tempting!! But I'm winning so far by reminding myself of my goals for the year and determining whether the temptations will help me get there or will they distract me from them. It's a struggle though, I just don't have the time to do everything I want!

My first Certificate with Lynda

What have I managed to get accomplished the past few weeks? Well, I completed my first course (and received the certificate for it) on Lynda.com, which was a generalized introduction to Graphic Design. It was pretty awesome actually. It covered all the basics that I learned from my Certificate with Conestoga College, but in a more practical and focused way. I really felt confident in my skills and talent as a designer when the course was over. I still have to finish the final assignment and I plan to get that done today, then I hope to finish the remaining courses for the Graphic Design Learning Path before the month is over.

Negative Painting

On the creative side, I've been working through various practice pieces in negative painting in watercolour, with varying degrees of success. Negative painting is quite challenging and I admit to some struggle with it. The biggest challenge for me isn't in looking at the objects you wish to paint from a negative perspective (not that I'm perfect at that yet either), but in the glazing needed to create the layers that make negative painting so appealing! I either have too much water, too much paint, or the wrong colour. Still, this is all learning and I'm progressing through all the "ugly" creations, so I guess it's going well!

If you haven't seen my Facebook/Pinterest feed lately here's what I've managed to do so far:

I feel this is my best and was done following an example by Linda Kemp from her book "Watercolor: Painting Outside the Lines"

I thought I would try my own design based on violets. 

Um, yeah, there's so much wrong here, however I feel the layering idea is improving!

Obviously I need to do more research as to what makes a good negative painting and how to achieve that so that's my goal for the next few weeks. Hopefully you'll see more examples of practice pieces in my next post!

In the meantime I hope you have a great week in whatever way is most important to you. Don't forget to take time out for yourself because you are awesome!

Until next time,

Mandy

If you'd like to see more of my work or keep up with me day-to-day you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook.

If you're interested in commissioning me, click here to be taken to my Contact page to send me an email or message me from my social media links above, I'd be happy to answer any questions :)