As a child, I was encouraged to read and spread my creative wings.  I always got books and art supplies as birthday presents.  My husband keeps the tradition alive.

Before he left for work on the morning of my birthday, he gave me one paint tube, a brush and paper.  I couldn’t wait to try them out, so I started drawing in my sketchbook.

I liked the first drawing fine, but to leave something well enough alone is not for me.  I traced the drawing onto another page and joined some of the lines together.  I circled one area where I did that on the pictures so you can see the difference.

After numerous attempts at trying out new paint directly on a painting and ruining it, I have learned my lesson.  I tried two black inks on a scrap piece of paper first.  I decided to use the Winsor & Newton inks in my painting.

The paint he gave me that morning was dioxazine violet.  Instead of painting a cliche red phoenix, I decided to push the energy level to ultraviolet and paint a purple phoenix. 

I painted the background first.  For a richer and darker background, I used inks instead of watercolour.  The Winsor & Newton blue and black inks blended into each other beautifully to give me a rich midnight sky.  I didn’t want the sky to be evenly painted, so I blended the inks directly on the painting instead of blending them on a palette first.  Since the blending needed to be done before the inks fully dried, I did this in small sections.

I excitedly showed the painting to my husband when he got home that evening. 

He gave me the rest of my presents then.  This was part of my birthday stash from early January.  These brands are all new to me.  

The professional quality Winsor & Newton he got for me included some of my favourite colours.   The paint exceeded my expectations.  It stayed where I dropped it, while also glazing and layering beautifully. 

This was my first time painting on Arches paper.  It felt like the paper anticipated my every brush stoke.  It was like working with an old friend who knows your idiosyncrasies ever so well. 

All that excitement pushed me forward to create the new logo that had been percolating in my head for quite a few months now.  I wanted the new logo to be representative of my love of images.   While tweaking the logo over a few days, the byline appeared in my head and stuck. 

Alongside, I have also been working on professional printing.  For a while, my room had at least 15 prints drying overnight, all done with different settings.  I was having such a marvelous time that I had to drag myself out of my atelier at times.

A couple of weeks after mine was my husband’s birthday.   He has always been so supportive that I wanted to frame prints of a couple of my paintings for his office.

These scenes are special since they are from two of our favourite places in England and Scotland – Yorkshire and Aberdeenshire. 

I also made him a fleece blanket and I am working on a warm woollen hat.  I will write more about them another time.

I can’t wait to make prints of this watercolour painting.  I got a different kind of paper specifically for printing watercolour images.

Have you been working on anything new?

Thank you so much for your lovely comments on The Magician’s Bookshelf.  You can still link up your posts here on Wandering Camera.

-Soma

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