My Creative Journey 21 + Watch me Paint! Ep. 09

Every journey begins with a step...and continues with countless more. There is no end to the creative path. Only progress. To get better you have to do. Your skills, your mind, your art will not get better unless you try. And trying means you will fail a lot. But, if you keep at it, eventually you will triumph, break through, and be where you want to be. Here is another step on my journey.

Can't stop, won't stop. Trying to push out a lot of stuff this afternoon to get caught up again. It's so easy to fall behind, and when each of these posts takes like an hour or two to assemble properly...hehe, time adds up really quickly. It's 4pm already, and I still gotta draw, paint, record, and write, all before maybe relaxing. :) So, I'm gonna get to it quick.

Last night...seriously...insane. Thanks to donations I was finally able to buy some color to mess with. Now, I've never worked with color before...maybe way way way way back as a kid with crayons and colored pencils...wait, there was a night I messed with crayons about a month ago...but, nothing serious. But, last night, I really got into it. But, never having worked with it I had no idea WTF to do, lol. Never had a class, never been shown how to do it.

A thousand questions formed the moment I set the canvas down. What color do I start with, what am I going to draw (especially for my first), what's going to be the second color, what will each color represent, why will I be using certain colors for certain things?

God, endless questions. But, like any blank canvas, I just started with a stroke and went from there. One of these days I might do actual prep and decrease the number, but I'm sure that lovely stress before it begins will always remain. At least, I hope it does, I mean, the feeling when you overcome it and begin...awesome.

I decided to do the smart thing and record my first painting, as the next episode of Watch me Paint!, and for posterity :) Don't worry, my head isn't in it for the majority...like older videos, lol.

Music: Erick de Jesús

For the next one I wanted to try something different.

I had used green as the first color on this first one, so I decided to see what it would be like to switch it up to use blue. As I've been doing for a while, I decided to live cast this on Instagram so that my fans and friends could watch it. The reason I mention this is because it lead to something really important...someone bought this painting that night! As in, after I finished the live cast they hit me up via private message and gave me a good number. So, in the next several days, maybe week depending on my work schedule, I'll be sending that out.

I think this is actually my favorite of the three I did last night. I love the way all the strokes feel so much like graphic arts. Almost like an old school comic...but more vivid. Kinda hard to see in a picture, but, in real life, so cool. It was hard to say 'yes' to the person, but, I really want my art out there, spreading to people who enjoy it. And, also, the money is really nice, hehe. Gotta always have my mind thinking about that money. Dreams gotta be built with something, hehe.

I leave it to you to decide what you want to see :) This painting definitely taught me some lessons about how to use the paint...and as to which colors I like and which order to lay them down in. Something that became abundantly clear with the third painting.

This one needs red...bad. And, instead of green or blue, I decided to start with yellow. Bad idea. I had this great design, but because the color was so bright, when I started laying shadows the outline just kinda got lost. So, perhaps the lesson for this kind of painting is, darker first? Start with outline, then middle tones, then shadows, and finally highlights?

I cannot emphasize enough, thinking about that kind of stuff as you're learning.

Always question the process. What works the best? What sucks? What do you like? What do you hate? For example, with these larger canvases I might try and paint them differently. Well, I'm going to, tonight, when I get home. Find what you like to do, how you like to do it, and the best way to do it :)

Like I said at the beginning, I got miles to go before I sleep tonight, so I don't want to spend too much time on this stop. These paintings were my first color ones, so I was really excited about them. Right now, I'm more excited about what I'm going to try and do tonight. Whether it will come out awesome, or horrible, I have no idea nor do I care. Just another step forward...as long as I take the time to analyze before trying to move anywhere.

As always, thank you so much for stopping by and looking :) Your words and votes mean a lot to me on this journey of mine. I'm at the most beginning of beginnings so your patience with my ignorance is much appreciated. Hope y'all have a great day!

Wessel

I'd like to dedicate this post to Christina + Eric, George + Marlis, Marisol, and Tony, for the support in my artistic endeavors :)

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