Practice

practice. they say…. make perfect.

but heck, I am not looking for perfect. actually far from it; you know i embrace the imperfections……but i am looking to be better.

better by pushing. by being curious. by expanding my knowledge and my ability to problem solve creatively and intuitively.

i took a class last week in watercolor and the first day was hard. like miles and miles of riding the struggle bus hard.

value sketches…… who does value sketches?! when there is always a gesso or more collage paper to solve anything that you didn’t expect to happen or can’t get to work….trust me on this.

but….. watercolor…. that crazy medium…. the mixing and blending, washes, warms and cools, saving the whites… goodness.

part of our lesson moved to painting with watercolor on yupo though….. (insert heart hands here!)

I had forgotten how much i like yupo.

if you are not familiar- yupo is plastic paper. which means it is easy to paint. difficult to control and yet super simple to just wipe off. and play again. and again. and again.

i was actually thinking of those who find it hard to add the darks- the work is all one value. maybe light to middle of the road value across the board……..this may be a nice space to experiment and try adding the darks without really ruining anything. play. add darks. wipe off and play again.

i mention this in the video, but remember yupo is plastic- so if you use a hair dryer to dry your layers in between- be careful which heat setting the dryer is on so you don’t melt your paper. ;) and alcohol will help take acrylic off of the yupo - you may need to scrub a bit, but should work; so keep that in mind as well.

thanks for being here! let me know your thoughts or if you have questions.

xo. kristin