New paintings and techniques

Did you ever have any of those children's activity books where they had pictures colored with dots, and you activated the paint by painting them with water? I had those and I found them very fun.

Recently I started using watercolor crayons. Using them feels like a cross between wax crayons and oil pastels. They are water soluble though, so painting them with water activates the colors and turns them into watercolor.

The fish painting uses water color crayon and colored pencils and then it's painted with regular water colors in the background. The lines are done with black colored pencil.

The tiger lily painting was done with colored pencils first. I did detail pattern work on the tiger lilies and the background. Then I colored them in with the crayons and painted with water.

The tiger lily painting took way to long with that background! It's a learning experience.

Catching Up

I've been painting more, and also doing some digital art. I'm drawing on my Wacom tablet. It's very awkward to draw on it still, but I'm getting better. I plan on doing a line of greeting cards and other products such as magnets, t-shirts, etc.

Otherwise, I'm selling real estate. Yes, this takes up a lot of my time! I'm doing well though. I'm selling mostly to investors and first time buyers.

I am involved with cat rescue- I'm on the board of SANS - Spay And Neuter Syracuse. It's a clinic that provides spay/neuter services for homeless animals and people who can't afford full cost services at vets. Last winter I worked on Pawcasso, an art auction fundraiser.

I am going to post on this blog when I finish paintings. Besides the digital, I've been doing a lot of watercolor/ink/watercolor crayon. Watercolor is easier to do when you don't have much time. Though I like acrylic better, I can take a half hour in the morning and get quite a bit done on watercolors. With the acrylic, I have to use a lot of time for setup and cleanup.

This is one of my more recent paintings, itwas done with watercolor and resist. You paint the foreground first - the cat and fish. Then I covered them with a rubber-like substance and painted the backgrounds. When it dried, I rubbed off the resist. It was hard to get the resist just right, it took several coats. I like the way it turned out. I have cards and products with this image for sale in my Zazzle store.

Cat and Fish Resist by MelskyArt
Create a Post card with zazzle.com