End result from week 1

First page done from week 1 of
Traci Bautista's Strathmore online workshop

Here is the final result of my first go at Traci Bautista's week 1 of her online Strathmore Artist Papers workshop.  It is a very multilayered approach and thus one that is challenging for me since I always feel the person demonstrating really does have some kind of plan in their mind that they simply don't know how to articulate--whereas I just plain lack a plan, period!  But in my new spirit of "focus" and attempt to bring a little more discipline (in a good way) to my creative endeavors, I took notes on what I was doing as I went along about what I liked and what I didn't.

I always have a tendency to head straight for detail right from the get-go.  I need to be aware of that so I can consciously back off of it.  Starting with bigger, more separate, large areas of color in the initial steps would be a good idea.  Also I think my color palette, while not horrible, could have been better chosen if I wanted something more vibrant.  On the other hand, what I did choose turned out to be pleasing, and I like the area of light I managed to preserve on the right-hand side of the page.

Other things I observed was that I really liked blending the Shiva oil sticks on top of the acrylic paint, but I didn't really get what the oil pastels were supposed to add or how to use them for any useful effect.

One of the last things done was to use a fluorescent Sharpie poster-paint pen.  I used pink since my daughter had it and I didn't have any fluorescent ones.  I was very impressed indeed with how it brightened up the whole page.  I especially liked using it to put dots on top of lines.

My favorite bit!

Doing two or three layers of masking/stenciling at the beginning allowed for some really neat effects, like the 3-leafed image at left.  It's a broken-off bit of a Kaiser woodcraft flourish that got outlined with India ink in a later step.  I like the glow it has about it.

Notice the (very) subtle outlining of the leaves?
Done with a yellow ShinHan marker.

This is another part of the page that I particularly like.  I didn't have Copic markers so used the ShinHan set I'd gotten on special at Jerry's Artarama some time ago.  It was pretty amazing to see the leaf pattern come out in the design when I outlined them with the marker.  I don't think anyone would realize the marker was there if they weren't scrutinizing it--but if I hadn't done it, these would have remained very much in the background rather than coming up to the mid ground.

I like the white lines I added with a
Uniball Signo marker.

Now this is not from the page the other three images are from.  Traci suggests having a extra piece of paper or other journal available to do ghost stampings on to clean off stencils/masks after using them on the main page--that way no pigment gets wasted, and one has another page already started.  I like the way this one is going because I've got more contrast.  What I liked about this part of it is the white lines I drew in the "v" section of the stencil design.  Doodling is not something that seems to come very naturally to me, but having realized I could do this--draw graduated lines to increase the interest of the pattern--was quite fun!