Comet

A new water color inspired by my latest class named COMET. Water colors, gouache and working with my tablet in Illustrator directly on the painting. Pretty fun experience.

Dreaming

I went to a water color workshop over the weekend by Satsuki Shibuya in the Line Hotel in Korea Town. It was a very interesting experience. This is my loose interpretation of the class.

Creating

Water colors, making marks, mixing dyes and colors, paper and fabric, layers of texture, folds, resists. Creating art, everyday objects.

Go be lovely

Beautiful soap bars packaging by Go be lovely.

Two ways

This is what happened when I started painting with gouache and water colors (bottom picture). I created something beautiful in a more controlled environment for me (top picture). You can tell I feel much more comfortable with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop than painting by hand. Not sure I would get there without the original though, but still the end result is so different. I would love to have the choice of correcting shapes, colors and positions when painting by hand, but I guess you get control over time, like everything else in life. I have to say that it was a blast doing them both. Maybe this is the way to go, creating two arts and choose my favorite. I wonder if I'll ever choose my hand painting over the computer version, time will tell.

A new adventure

I'm embarking on a new journey to learn how to paint with water colors. I'm going to practice by myself by drawing and painting using water colors, gouache, pens and what ever makes me happy. The next step will be to take an actual class.

My voice

I'm trying to find my own voice in this medium, water colors are new to me. Sure I painted with water colors before, but I never got to where I wanted to be, just wasn't crazy about the result, until now. I love the transparent quality of the colors when they mix with each other. After watching a few videos on Youtube I tried to paint myself. My graphic esthetics took over and I added pens and colored pencils. I wonder where it will take me and how I'll make it my own. Other than getting the proper paper and brushes, I'm planning to take a class at Otis, my favorite art school in the area. This is my first attempt to find myself in water colors (It's probably not a good idea to post my first attempts after the amazing art of Kiana Mosley, I guess we all have to start somewhere).

Nani Iro

Naomi Ito, an amazing textile designer from Japan.

Quiet please

Working long hours on the computer lately made me miss hand drawing and my water colors. I got inspired from our huge sunflowers and wanted to create a colorful and happy drewing. Different colored sunflowers on different backgrounds. I love the white background, the dark ones make the sunflowers look cluttered and I need some air these days. • Hand-drawn, water colors, scanned and manipulated in Adobe Photoshop.

Water color magic

Josh took my picture the other day and converted it to water color painting with this amazing app.

WIP Water colors (3)

I had to create three coordinating painted original floral patterns in water color for the apparel market. I used the original water colors without converting them to vector files, you can see a sample here. They are all scanned and repositioned to work together as a one whole design, I also added a background to each. It's not my usual way of working but I'm enjoying taking on new and challenging tasks, the results are pretty surprising.

WIP Water colors (2)

On my journey to find a way to control my water color brush strokes and make them my own, I experimented with drawing some chrysanthemums with diff colors. I feel that I'm getting closer to where I want to be. The top photo is a scan of my water color drawing, and the bottom is the vector file I created in Adobe Illustrator. The idea behind creating a vector file is controlling the number of colors, position of each item and make it easier to create a repeat. I LOVE the original, there is such an amazing quality to hand drawn items.

WIP Water colors (1)

My new assignment is to design three coordinating painted original floral patterns in water color for the apparel market. This is my first attempt, painting with water colors are out of my element, I'm not completely comfortable with them yet. I love the delicate transparency result and the light and dark colors but I can't completely control them yet, I'll get there eventually. The second photo is the inspiration for the flowers I drew.

Karin Johannesson

Water color paintings by Karin Johannesson.