{"id":185,"date":"2023-08-09T12:35:06","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T17:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cynthialara.com\/?p=185"},"modified":"2023-08-09T14:03:45","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T19:03:45","slug":"forest-watercolor-paintings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthialara.com\/watercolor\/forest-watercolor-paintings\/","title":{"rendered":"Forest Watercolor Paintings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yesterday I seized the strong art wave that presented itself and created three whimsical forest watercolor paintings. But wait a minute… It really didn’t present on it’s own. I told my kid “Hey, let’s set up and paint”, “Let’s listen to Riverside. It is the best music I’ve found for focus”<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Looking for Inspiration<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What they say about art inspiration is true: it doesn’t really present itself on it’s own and you have to summon it. I was decided to get in the mindset of art, and I think music really helped too. I started looking at my Pinterest home feed and there are some great aritsts out there! I discovered a few great artists and got super inspired. One that really stood out to me was Matt Rockefeller<\/a>. He really is inspiring!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From Inspiration to Action<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Once I was filled with art ideas I had just so much going on in my head and I didn’t want to lose any time. I didn’t yet knew what to draw so I quickly just drew three frames for the illustrations. Once in the flow<\/em>, I guess it didn’t really took a lot of effort, just let the pencil flow from one panel to the next until I had all three sketches. I’ve been following the carefree attitude I described in my most recent post to let go of my perfectionism<\/a> and I must say that all things came so much better because I didn’t have a plan for the artwork in mind, all I knew at this point was that I wanted to create three forest watercolor paintings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Behind the Scenes \/ WIP<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Without any more words (I struggle). Here are a few photos of the doing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Forest
Fable, first layers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Forest
Fable, backgrounds almost done<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Fable, finished<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Adding the shinny hearts to all animals came as a surprise (more of the enjoy the process, let go): While painting the bodies, I added the shadows first and more blending colors until the center of the animal, where the heart would be, was lighter. It just instantly reminded me of Vasil Woodland’s art<\/a>. One common topic in their art is the presence of a heart in animals and magic that happens around it. In my version it represents the spirit of their habitats \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tools Are Super Important, But Not Everything<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I bought a few cheap brushes at Michaels a few weeks ago and I thought they were ok, until I took my 30 year old brush (that belonged to my dad) and painting became so much better. About 90% of them were made using cheap crap brushes I wanted to test tho LOL.. anyway back to the magic brush…No wonder why it was my favorite when I was in college. I wish I new what brand it is. It is old, it’s not fancy, it is only the best brush ever.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Final Thoughts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Allowing yourself to make mistakes, to think about having fun, enjoy the process and just pass time doing something you love, it may result in creating something super good. So far, I feel my art is so much better lately, because I don’t care!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way, I created a Riverside playlist for all artsy folks. For those who don’t know the band it is prog metal but no growls or shouts or anything like that. The guitar player kind of sounds like he “stole” (inspired from) Al Di Meola and it really puts me in the mood for ultra focus-<\/p>\n\n\n\n