5th christmas card finished at last!

Done! HA! this one flown so easily that I cannot believe it. And it's the end of the series for this year's Christmas cards.

I wonder what I'll try next, making these 5x7" has make me want to go big for the next project :D or maybe a portrait for the colorful watercolor group, it's time to join in the fun!

Olive green, never again?

I'm calling this almost finished, tomorrow morning will be done.

Olive Green has reminded me why I never use it anymore, beautiful color, nasty pigment for me. I tried to use it for the dark green areas and it didn't flow and granulated badly and then lifted by just looking at it and in the end I just decided to remove it, lay again the base of spring green and yellow in those areas and then replace it with sap green, much MUCH better.

It hasn't been hard but it did take time redoing things and delayed me quite a bit, this card should be finished already. But now that the background is finished and the candy already shaped the rest will flow tomorrow morning for sure.

Still working on the background

This is how it looks now, the peach color has turned out to be more like a coral, but it's ok. Right now I'm working on reapplying a second layer of that coral because the first was so thin that soon got pretty overpowered by the green and yellow, it's taking me longer waiting for one color to dry before putting the other down instead of doing the whole base coat in one single layer as I did in the previous cards but, I don't want muted greyed colors so it's safer to apply the coral and the green in different layers.

Since there's not much to see yet I've included the swatch of colors I did to decide which ones I would use in this illustration, the Olive Green from Winsor&Newton is so different from the Daniel Smith one that it's scary lol.

And this is a shot of the previous step, before the second layer of coral, it was really light, but not anymore, I want BOLD in this series of illustrations for the cards, boldBOLDBOLD!

Ready to rumble

Quick update while I wait for the watercolor paper to dry after stretching it.

This is the final sketch on the watercolor paper, as soon as it dries the fun begins. I'm thinking greens and yellows or peaches for this one, then reds browns and purples, I want ot try perylene maroon + manganese blue since they made a nice reddish eggplant color in one of my swatches.

One more christmas card in the making

It's midnight already but I thought I could post the sketch of the 5th card before going to bed, BTW the "stuffed with love" sentence I put there is not going to be part of the illustration, it was floating in my mind while I was quickly sketching it, it gotta be the best sentence in a zombies' game EVER, true, in the actual game you can throw these sweet teddies that say "I'm stuffed with loooooove" and then explode taking down lots of zombies ^____^. I'm sleepy, ok?

There will be only 1 candy bar in the final illustration, I was just checking the best positioning while making the sketch.

Can you see the resemblance with the teddy in my banner? yes, who said I'm not good at portraiture...?

BTW, deviantART is giving a discount offer this week, 30% off any greeting card until friday, so if you're interested pay a visit there, it would be great if you'd check my store if you see something you like, these are the greetings in it, click on the image to get redirected there:

Yupo, I'll try it in the future for sure

I've been trying to design some visit cards today, thought it would be easier but now it looks like I'm not satisfied with anything.



Then I've looked at my palette and have seen some dry used colors mingled together, that has put an idea in my mind, why not look for some patterns of paints flowing into each other? so instead of cleaning my palette I've taken a sample of yupo I had around and thrown Lamp Black and French Ultramarine Blue all around hoping to get some patterns I can use in the visit cards.


Lesson learned: Yupo is an interesting animal... worths giving it a try.

Pattern nightmare! another christmas card done

I've finally finished the second Christmas card, it wasn't working at all and I strugled a lot trying to get something acceptable from that bag of gifts that used to be in the lower corner, then Angeles told me that maybe getting rid of the bag and painting the gifts would be better and I think she was right! Of course I had to photoshop it to compose the final piece, maybe I'll post the wip later, when I have time to gather the images.

My only concern about it is that now the gift boxes have much more weight than the deer but that's fine because they are gifts! and they must be colorful and tacky and full of patterns! ok, I added a blue thing to the deer face to redirect the eye back to the upper corner and maintain the eyeflow, just so you know I'm still thinking straight.

Oh, and this is the sketch for the fifth card, I'm not sure why I call this mess a sketch at all but it makes sense in my head and just doodled it while I was painting the pile of gifts so I wouldn't forget the idea, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Hint -> sock, teddy, candy:

Santa Claus is coming to town (as a greeting card)

Good morning everybody! Ok, the fourth card is finished before the second LOL, this is Santa coming to town during Christmas night, get the cookies and milk ready guys!


So far the first 3 are already up at my prints shop in Deviant Art if you want some, from tomorrow on they'll be offering a 30% discount! Don't miss it :)

I'll upload a banner later on the side of the blog so everybody have it handy during the whole season.


An since I haven't put up the progress of this one so far, here are some shots I took while painting:

Deconstructing Daniel Smith's Moonglow

I'm in the middle of a quest to solve a pigment problem in my fourth christmas card. The choice I made yesterday doesn't seem like the best one, it was Daniel Smith's Moonglw, beautiful, BEAUTIFUL color, but not the right pigments for this card in particular.

Then today after some tests a bulb has lighted over my head, why not check all the pigments in Moonglow, see if I have them and replace the problematic one? so of course it's taken me 2 seconds to realize I didn't have all the pigments in Moonglow lol, but that's ok because it has let me go on research mode, handprint.com is fabulous for that.

So for Moonglow I need:
- Viridian (PG18) which I have (in fact it will give me the chance to try my untouched Yasutomo paints).
- Ultramarine Blue (PB29) which is the granulating color in the mix and the one I wanted to change for Indanthrene Blue since I've already used in the sky and is rich and staining.
- Anthraquinoid Red (PR177) which I don't have and after looking at the pigment it's not under another name at Winsor&Newton, so I won't be able to buy it locally, on the other hand after reading about its qualities I don't like the fact that it hasn't good lightfastness, one of the alternatives given at Handprint is Perylene Maroon which I happen to love and after reading more about the pigment it's staining, so it'll be good for darks and my mix wont granulate.


I feel so accomplished right now! LOL, so I guess I'll put here the info I wrote about both pigments, it's easier to take a photo than to rewrite it, sorry if my handwritting is a problem (one day I'll have to take all those scraps of paper I have around with info and put them together in a notebook or something).


Now after all the theory is time for making some tests and see if it does really work for my painting or I'll need to keep on looking for solutions, let the fun begin!

Toony deer christmas card almost done! almost...

I'm letting this one sit for a while, gotta decide on that bag of gifts since I'm not so sure how I want to approach it right now, then it'll be finished. Meanwhile I guess I'm gonna start the next one.

Hope everyone is having a great sunday :)

Almost finished

Looks like I didn't work on it at all, right? but I was diligently working at the painting table the whole morning, what's happened? simply that I've painted the upper area and lifted it for the second time, then I decided on a different approach because that white/blue/purple spiral looked like weird cotton candy glued up there and I didn't like it, now it looks better IMO.

Now I'll look for an acetate and try the white spiral over this setting and see if I like it better or leave it as it is right now.


Also, lines around the squared shapes, yes or no? Vote now.

3 interesting things about this morning session:
1.- the process white lifts pretty well
2.- the paper took all the abuse of a second lifting perfectly.
3.- Ultramarine violet and Cobalt violet seems to be shy and almost invisible in front of a camera.

During drying time I started on the third card, after all it's been stretched there for 2 days now so why not painting on it? the sketch is light but its a deer (someone pointed at it and said it's an elephant already so I feel like clarifying it and save me further humiliations).

EDIT : I now declare this one finished lol.

Another christmas card

Time for a different approach to this year cards, I didn't manage to finish this one yesterday as expected BUT I'm happy I made the decision to stop, I came to that point when you want to rush and you know it's better to stop for a while but I didn't ^_^ so I ended up with quite a mess in the upper area and lifted it right after, THEN decided to stop.

So today I think I'll play with it in Photoshop for a while and decide what I need to do up there before wetting my brushes again. Also... do I want to keep it pure watercolor or going mixed media?

Lesson learned: No matter how much you think you hate granulating paints when you're layering over them, as soon as you need to lift a messed area the love is back!



EDIT: A little tweak in photoshop, fun if not refined hehehe. My options now: going dark inside those whites, not going dark, more subtle spyral as in the sketch, using process white, saving it with masking fluid... I'm going to have fun with this one!

Cobalt Violet mystery

This hasn't happened to any of my paints other than this one, I've had it for half and a year now, haven't used it because I still have a tiny bit of W&N Cobalt Violet but each time I pull this American Journey one out of my tubes' box it looks like this, like resin dripping off a tree, I clean it and the next time it's just the same, this can't be good LOL, maybe when I finally use it there will be only pure pigment in that tube?!?!? Hmmmmm....

Probably not Rudolph

Yesterday I spent the day trying to finish some christmas cards, one ended in the paper bin and will never ever come back, this is the other one.



Somehow I managed to spend a lot of time trying different settings, designing a sleigh (or is it sledge?), adding it, removing it, redoing thumbs for value studies... just to decide that even if it didn't feel right I'd fix it while adding color.

NOTE TO SELF: if you take the time and make the effort to put up a plan just stick to said plan!

I guess it works, it could have gone really wrong, working on this paper didn't help (give me my Fabriano CP or SP anytime) I feel like it ended up pretty well other than for the shadows and definitely much better than it seemed when I started, but I'm not happy because this is not what I wanted to achieve, so it will probably be labeled as a winter landscape with an animal or something like that, most likely not a seasonal greeting for this christmas unless it grows on me this week.

Now back to the drawing table, there are loads of paintings to try yet!

This post is about memememe! and 7 awesome bloggers

Paul Kasmir surprised me with the Kreativ Blogger award, now it's mineminemine and you can't take it back Paul! nah, just kidding, you've made me a happy lady for sure and honoring the KV rules here come the 7 facts about me, completely random, I know:

1.- I'm obsessed with anything asian, I have a soft spot for zombies too, so a Jiang Shi should be the perfect halloween costume, right?

2.- My feet are huge, truely hobbit feet, I hate shoe shopping because I can't stand to keep on getting off whatever I'm wearing to try shoes that I like but that just won't fit, once and again and again and again...

3.- Coke Zero addict, yes.

4.- My full first name is Maria Teresa, long loooong time ago my art teacher at school used to call me Maite and I hated it, Maritere won't do either. Teresa or Tere are love ♥

5.- I use to give names to my techstuff, the TereDell, the TerePod, the TereTera... the only 3 that didn't get my own name as a part of theirs were 3 old hard drives called "fluffy", "gordito" and "atún", the later 2 honoring my favourite sentence from Lilo & Stitch.

6.- My grandfather is still the only one who I trust with my deepest worries and pains, he's been dead for over 20 years now.

7.- My shelf is full of unread or just half read languaje methods, one of these days I'll put them to good use and become multilingual, YAY!

How was that? ^_^

Now the good part, seven awesome artists and bloggers that I happen to stalk:

Andy Smith
Deb Léger
Gina Hall
Latasha Moore
Michelle Himes
Mª Jose Barrera
Irina Rekhviashvili

Among those blogs you'll find plenty of works in progress, sketches, exercises, watercolors, illustrations, colorCOLORCOLOR, art talk, people from all over the world, one of my best online friends, and the only one artist that I've commisioned up to date.

My part is done, now do yours and check those awesome 7 artists blogs, they well deserve the award