January Favorites- Trying new things

    January, the month of new beginnings, the first weeks of a fresh new year. It is such a short 'real' month, starting as it does after the 6th and the fact that it gets steadily lighter always gives me a feeling that I am waking up after a nap. Surreal in many ways. The other day a friend of mine likened January to the Monday of the calendar year. I think she might be right, both in a negative as well as a positive way. Mondays are slow, plodding and not usually overly creative, yet they often form the foundation for the rest of the week. Plans are made, appointments set up. Mondays set the tone in spite of themselves. My January has been very much like this. Not exciting, energetic or ambitious but interesting and exploratory. As a new year has started I have given myself the time to try new things, projects and techniques I have been wanting to try out but haven't had the time to do anything about. Many of them turned out to be quite enjoyable and will be included in future efforts.


 Here are some of the 'new things' I have tried this past month:

Painting on sheet music:

I bought sheet music months ago but wasn't able to use it until now. I rather like how the birds turned out. See them all here.

Vintage toys in watercolor:

   Over new year we visited a local toy museum with friends. It was a lot of fun! I really like old toys, especially in collections. This museum had been a private collection and is quite impressive. I have been wanting to do a few vintage robots and such for boys rooms or more modern decor pieces (I added that second category since I would rather like to have a robot illustration on my wall).

Using a wide range of colors to paint a snowy landscape:

   This wasn't a specifically hard project just something I had been tossing about in my mind. I had the chance to try it out and found the color scheme quite fun.

A whole Sunday devoted to sketching:

  At our house, weekends are usually devoted to family activities. Homework figures heavily in the Saturday/ Sunday routine but thanks to a contact from a fellow Urban sketcher I actually went sketching on a recent Sunday. It was surprisingly fun and relaxing... So that is how the other half lives.

Botanical sketch with Inktense pencils:

   I am not done with this on, but as a watercolor botanical illustrator, I have been wanting to branch out and try my hand at a few other mediums. I have worked on other things with Inktense pencils but nothing as detailed. It is fun but hard to get the level of accuracy I crave. It will be a lesson in working looser. Inktense pencils are like watercolor pencils in that you 'color' and then add water but rather than having aquarelle they have ink leads.

Featured Toby Davis on the blog:

   A while ago I had the idea to start a blog series in which I feature artists I admire or work with. Toby Davis, an American Oil Painter based in Boise Idaho was the first in the series. It was a fun project and I am looking forward to the next installment with yet another artist. I have several in mind and have been in contact with a few. I have yet to decide whether I will do this on a monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly system. You can read my interview with him here if you missed it.

Signed up for a handmade business online training:

   This month I caved and signed up for an online business training course for handmade business owners. I have yet to actually begin- I am saving that for next month but in the meantime I am happy that I have made a decision which one to do and have actually purchased the program- step one!

Found fun old photographs in an antique shop:

   As a bonus, I ran across several really fun old photos in a local antique shop and bought them to use as references. Finding additional reference sources that were not online has been something I have been thinking about but have not really proactively pursued. Finding them was an unexpected pleasure.

My cat has also enjoyed having everyone back where they belong, allowing her to have the time she needs to explore and sleep during the day.

  Well, those were the highlights and firsts of my January. What were your highlights? Did you try anything new this month? Did you start in on any new years resolutions? Let me know in the comments.

I post three times a week; Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. To get posts as soon as they are published click on the subscribe button at the top of the page or Follow by clicking on the follow button.