Playing with mixed media

Mixed media has never been a strong point for me, but my Artist Way group loves it:  the more different kinds of media, the better! I'm more of a purist I guess. This particular meeting, we didn't really have a planned project so we got out some gel medium and "played". I'm still not quite sure what gel medium is but it sure is versatile. Along with it, I used ink, magazine clippings, and pastel crayons on watercolor paper. Here are my creations.

Darth Vader, White on Black

After finishing my Darth Vader portrait in pencil, it got me thinking...since Darth Vader is so black, why not start with black paper and just draw in the white?  I didn't have any black paper laying around but I did have some butcher paper, and as long as I was working on butcher paper, I might as well just use crayons! And we are not talking fancy conte crayons or anything close. I grabbed a jumbo crayola. Go big or go home, right? So the size of this piece is about  27" x 36", pretty big for my standards. I used the same reference photo as I did for the pencil drawing. This actually took much less time than the pencil drawing even though it is much bigger.

Haunted house, plein aire watercolor

A friend had invited me to an "Artober" festival where they invited several plein aire painters, face painters, etc. It was centered around a house that was decorated to the hilt with Halloween decor. Although the task of simplifying it down to paint was daunting, I took the challenge! A majority of the piece was done plein air, but I have to admit, I took a photo so I could finish it at home.
My perspective lines are still off a little bit...seems to be an area I need to work on if I keep painting houses. I used a couple of new techniques as well.  I used a crayon on the street sign to write the numbers and letters so it would resist the watercolor. I also had to lift color off a couple of areas, which I did with a stiff damp brush.  Luckily I was using heavier paper so that this worked. Otherwise the paper would have just started falling apart. I used white paint several times as well with varying success. The cob webs on the bushes just didn't show up like I wanted them to.  Next time, I would darken the bushes and try scraping the webs in with a knife.
At one point I thought I was done, but then realized there were a couple more details that I could add, but eventually I just have to say, "I'm done!" Can you find the four changes I made to the second pic?

On another note, my daughter decided to come with me to try out her artistic side...special effects makeup. Here are some pics of her creations.

Check out more of her work on Instagram:  @autumnelizamakeup

The 4 differences are: I added cobwebs on the bushes (which don't show very well), there's another pumpkin on the right side of the porch, the bat above the new pumpkin, and I moved the base of the street sign :)

Experimenting with watercolors

I taught a class about water coloring to my Artist Way group, focusing on different effects that can be created with watercolor. We started by talking about the different consistencies of the paint, depending on the water-paint ratio: tea, milk, or cream.  Start with tea, and work your way up to cream.  We discussed the nature of water always going to where it is dry...going from wet brush to dry paper, or wet paper to dry brush. I showed how to do washes and wet on wet blending of color, as well as resist with crayon, blotting, and even trying a salt effect. Sometimes I think I know just enough to be dangerous! It was just a fun night of playing with watercolor. Here are a couple of pieces I created...there was no plan, both of these just developed into something from trial and error.