ACEOs 11-15

My laptop died (major compatibility issues) and then was recently resurrected, so I'm quite late posting this batch.

11.

02/11/2015

Cotman watercolour and white gouache.

I used the Mini Plus palette for this painting. Colours were fine, mixing space was fine. It's not as detailed as I'd like but for a quick sketch, I'm fairly happy with it. 

12.

04/12/2015

Cotman watercolour and white gouache.

Note to self: next time, mask the jellyfish. Or don't bother with a background. One or the other. This was complete hell and I ended up just giving up trying to get it to look the way I wanted. I even have a masking fluid pen for fine details, it just never occurred to me to actually use it.

13.

16/01/2016

Winsor and Newton professional watercolour (with the tiniest amount of white gouache).

Again, didn't think I'd need to mask so I  had a bit of fun with the blue leaking into everything. Was unintentional to do two paintings one after the other with a blue background and dominant red subject. This was actually an abandoned professional paints test that I decided to finish up while waiting for number 15 to dry. Professional paints are a whole new world compared to the Cotman range when it comes to mixing colours, so I'm going to need a lot of practice before I'm comfortable using them. 

14.

17/01/2016

Schmincke Horadam watercolours, Copic Multiliner SP, white gouache and white gel pen.

The latter two materials are purely to correct my monumental inking fuck-up, so while the water container does have a brass-coloured lid, it's never going to have one in this sketch. It was only a quick sketch but most of it was a salvage operation. I really like pen and watercolour though and it's definitely something I want to work on improving. This is the first time I've tried it and I don't even care that it's super wonky, I still like it! Also yes, I have Schmincke paints now. So far I like them more than Winsor and Newton's professional range. 

15.

19/01/2016

Winsor and Newton professional watercolour and white gouache. 

Another eye. I really struggled with the professional pigments on this painting. I just could not get the colours the way I wanted them. In the end I quit messing with the skin before I made it into a bigger disaster and then finished up the rest of it. I know I could probably mix some gouache in to try and salvage it, but at this point I'd rather just leave it. It's better than the last eye painting I did for ACEO 5 and I didn't use a reference this time. It's nice to be able to see improvement as I keep doing these, even though I know I can still do better. Practice practice practice!

ACEOs 6-10

More ACEOs! 

There's a huge gap between paintings here (and a big silence on this blog): I had a family tragedy in June and I lost my motivation to do anything. I tried to carry on as "normal" and it didn't feel right. I needed some time to just be a human blanket pile in my spare time, so I had it. 

I bought a Deck Box during the course of this batch of paintings because I couldn't deal with the mini paintings scattered everywhere, so now they have their own little white box to live in. I'd highly recommend them to anyone who does ACEOs. They're the perfect storage containers for them, and it'll be a long while before I've filled mine up. 

6.

11/06/2015

Cotman watercolours. I decided to try the waterbrush again with something a bit more sketch-like, and this was the result! It blotted an area of the fence without my permission, but otherwise was fine to use. I'm much happier with this than I am with the last waterbrush test.

7.

12/06/2015

Cotman watercolours. More of the waterbrush, and I used the exact same colours for this as I did for the previous one. I still had mixes leftover on the palette and the colours were so beautiful that I didn't want to waste them. I'm less happy with this one, but I think I've found my favourite bright green mix (sap and cobalt). 

8.

07/07/2015

Cotman watercolours, white gouache, Copic multiliner and clear wax crayon. This was a test for using a wax crayon on a water painting. It doesn't really work so well when the painting is this tiny. The wax was a bit overpowering, but it was certainly fun to try and I'd rather have tried it for the first time on an ACEO than a large piece that had taken ages to prepare for paint. Using the ACEOs like this was one of the reasons I bought them, after all. I used the waterbrush again for this one. 

9.

18/07/2015

Cotman watercolours. The tree went wrong pretty early on, but this was a very quick scribble done while another was drying, so it was never going to be all that great. I didn't have anything planned, I just wanted to play.

10.

01/11/2015

Cotman watercolours and white gouache. This is my first try at painting something like this. Apart from the too-large blobs (let the initial spatter dry before reworking some of the dots!), I quite like how it turned out. It was a lot of fun to do. It could do with more contrast in the lighter areas, but for a first go I'm fairly happy with it. It's the first time I've tried using white gouache with a toothbrush and the effect is perfect for things like this. Adding the gouache is a bit scary; if it goes wrong, like it did, it's usually impossible to fix. I thought it would be better to leave it as it is than to try and amend the blobs.

Fun with ACEOs (1-5).

I bought a hefty amount of ACEOs a little while ago for me to play with. I wanted to have a go at little paintings again - I guess I've missed working on small and quick things after all. I also thought that they'd be great for testing new art materials and practising techniques or new subjects (or old subjects that I'm still crap at). If it goes wrong, I haven't wasted much as the cards are really cheap to buy. Basically, they're for me to play around with. Some will be "finished", some won't. Most are probably just going to be the result of "I want to play with something art-related but I'm not sure what".

1.

05/05/2015

Cotman watercolours. Intentionally unnatural colours (that don't come across at all in the photo - that grass is NOT that shade of green). I couldn't be bothered with mixing, I just wanted to play with my new cards. 

2.

22/05/2015

Cotman watercolours and Copic Multiliner in Sepia. No sketch lines, no idea what I was doing, done freehand while the next one was taking ages to dry. Turned out to be my favourite so far. 

3.

26/05/2015

Cotman watercolour. Playing with more muted tones for a landscape scribble but I didn't really like them. I think I prefer the brighter ones I'm used to. Landscapes remain one of my art nemeses. 

4. 

06/06/2015

Cotman watercolour. Wanted to play with drawing pansies but then decided to turn this into a waterbrush test. I've never painted with a waterbrush before. Conclusion: detail is impossible, water water everywhere. I had to work with water when I didn't want water, which meant it had to be done in lots of layers (something I don't like doing with watercolour anymore) and the paint ended up thick and flat. For work like this, the waterbrush isn't ideal. I imagine it's more suited to sketching, which is what people use them for, so I'll try it for that soon.

5.

10/06/2015

This turned out a lot better than the last eye I tried to paint (and wasted a much smaller piece of paper, too) but I still have so much I need to improve. Eyelashes and eyebrows are really hard to do with the brushes that I have - I may have to dig my sable rigger out when I try these in future.

The only one I signed with paint and a brush is the third one, the rest were done with a Copic Multiliner. I'm not good at signing my name in miniature: 2.5"x3.5" doesn't give you much to work with! They're all a bit warped, as you can see. I did tape them all down, but there's only so much tape you can put on a card that tiny and still have a surface left to paint on.

I'm going to blog these like I did (and should still be doing but shhh) the Instagram photos. Every five ACEOs will be a blog. I have around 200 cards: I'm hoping to see an improvement as I work through them.