Expensive Equipment

As I once again click "order" at the bottom of the Dick Blick page, I'm reminded of the fact in photography that it's not the equipment that you use but the 'eye' that you have or your ability to turn it into something afterward.
Oh well, too late, I've already clicked the button.
I've been collecting art supplies for a couple years now. Have I done much with them? No. But I have made an attempt this year to play. As long as I can follow along in a class or watch a video I can produce some work. Most of these find their way into digital work because they're not good enough for anything else except maybe a journal page but then when do I ever do that?
I have a nice stack of papers now that I'd love to make into a book. But I'll probably wait till I have more of a variety and it'll be a someday thing.
I signed up for an abstract flower class on Ivy Newport's site awhile back and figured I'd better review the supply list. Oh my, it was watercolor and I was thinking acrylic... Since I just made a few bucks at my last show, I'm determined to spend it on more supplies for my collection. Besides watercolors, I ordered some pan pastels that have been on my list forever. Some inks and a few encaustic paints also found their way into the shopping cart.
It will arrive just 2 days before class so in the mean time I will play a bit with the few watercolors that I do have. I ordered Golden's Qor because a teacher friend says she like those best and I love Golden's others paints.
Now back to that 'equipment' issue. I passed on the Daniel Smith and Holbein paints that were on the supply list although those were tempting but oh so pricy. That at least made me feel somewhat good about my purchase. Now to just use what I have and not let it sit in the closet.

Created in the Figurescapes class by Tricia Dewey on IvyNewport.com.

Mobile Art Monday No. 56

Hope you don't mind as I stray far from my normal editing path. I've been watching a lot of painting videos lately. Jodi Ohl has gotten my total attention. Last week I went to the university book store and bought $150 worth of art supplies. They have a fabulous art department. (About the only thing missing is encaustic supplies.) I re-watched and painted on three at the same time to get some techniques down. They aren't quite finished, probably practice some more on them.

But, in the mean time.... I'd taken a photo of some oil paint left on my palette paper that I'd folded up and trashed. I needed to retrieve it to check a color and loved what I found when I opened it! So I had been playing with it in Superimpose, masking it over a textured background. This is what I ended up with that I decided to take into Procreate and have a play. It doesn't look anything like my finished piece, does it? You may be able to pick out a few light/dark areas is all.

One thing I did that you can see from these layers, is that I duplicated that texture and set the second layer to exclusion. Then I added a lime green layer over it and set the blend mode to Add at 50%. This of course totally changed the color and got me excited. 

Here are a couple of in-progress shots.

I had picked a canvas sized 4000x3000 when I meant it to be square. That's why you are seeing brush marks beyond the edge of the image. I cropped after finishing.

Check this Vimeo link to see the fast motion 25 second video from Procreate.

Hope you're having a great Monday whether you're 'arting' or not.

If  you want to take a cool class, my friend friend Tricia Dewey is starting an iPad class Monday over at Ivy Newport's online class site. I think there may still be spots left... Figurescapes class.