Art Tuesday

Hi there!

Welcome to my new blog - Ive been pondering on whether or not to begin an art blog for a while now, and decided to take the plunge.

First of all, big shouts of thanks to my dear friend Niki Jackson who has helped with the creation and design of it!

Today became Art Tuesday by sheer serendipity, and totally unprepared I waved the little one off for the day and contemplated a huge stretch of uninterupted time to create some art.

I decided to start with some sketches of puffins, from notes and pics I had gathered some time ago. I used watercolour, inks and crayon on this piece, I like the effect of wetting the paper that has already been painted (do this in smallish areas) and drawing into it with inks - sepia gives a nice tonal quality when it runs into water and you can also use it on dry work to outline (its not as harsh as black).

I mixed silver ink with veridian green watercolour paint to tint the fishes, then when they were dry I painted over the top of each one with a bright blue. Because it's painted onto a base of ink, the paint sort of shrinks away from it somewhat and dries quite transparent leaving only a sheen of colour which looks rather effective. Into this I scratched into the paint and ink with orange and blue crayon to outline, before edging in fineliner pen.

Im really enjoying this piece and I hope to have it completed before long, you will be able to see it in all its glory at my website http://www.juliacrossland.co.uk/