Zodiac Club Art Experiments

Has anyone used the set of art supplies from the July shipment to explore their creative side, yet? I've been playing around with the mini canvases a bit. I love their size because you can experiment with a technique or an idea without getting overwhelmed with the project. Forewarning: I haven't had an art class since I was in grade school and even then I usually stuck to sculpting or something else that didn't involved canvas and paint. I'm posting these photos not to show how good or bad of an artist I am, but to share with you the fun I've been having exploring a new (to me) form of art!

First I decided to stick with a subject that is really familiar to me-- the Unique Sheep logo. Normally I use watercolor pencils, regular drawing paper and black ink pen for our logos. For this experiment I used the logo I'm familiar with but used a canvas-paper and gauche paints. Gauche paints are really interesting to work with because they are thick and opaque like acrylic but they are actually a type of water color so if you dip your brush in water you can blend the colors on the page. To me, though, it still feels more like painting with acrylics and feels some what restricting. I do like that with gauche you can do a watercolor like blended background and then use the undiluted, opaque paint to do layers on top -- like the little swirls of color on my sheep. That is definitely a technique worth exploring more. I like how my sheep's body turned out but there is something "off" about her head.




 My second attempt was a medium I'm a bit more familiar with- water color- but a new subject, a portion of the view out the window of my family room. I used watercolor paper and one of those little children's sets of watercolors with 8 or so little slabs of color lined up in a plastic case. I think I would enjoy doing watercolors-- I like the freedom and the way the colors move in the water. Its a LOT like dyeing yarn, only you have to try to make a picture, not just a pretty color. I think I'd like to get a better set of watercolor paints and learn how to use them properly. Overall I'm pleased with how this little painting turned out, given the limitations of my supplies.

I've hung both of my little paintings on our refrigerator, with pride! We don't have kids yet so we rarely have colorful drawings on our fridge, unless we are honored with a gift from a friend, so its nice to brighten it up a bit!