tortagialla.com - Artist + Designer Linda Tieu » watercolor

Not always cute…

linda — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:19:16 +0000

Sometimes a drawing takes on it’s own life. I didn’t like the pen I used, way too thick and it just started going downhill from there. My supposed cute girl turned into an evil little devil with messy watercoloring, as I was annoyed and just went at it violently! It’s okay, right? I had to remind myself – doesn’t always have to be cute or good or correct…just let it be.

Dip pen and ink all over creative workspace

linda — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 07:39:01 +0000

Happy Thursday to everyone and Happy April! Can’t believe the year is going by so quickly – I suppose that means I’m having fun and really making use of my time. I always feel like I don’t have enough hours in a day though. To do all that I want to do, I’m feel ansy all the time, wanting to get the ideas in my head out and completed. Well, one step at a time, right? As promised from yesterday, I finally gave my dip pen another try and practiced. I tried all the nibs and picked the most comfortable one to doodle with. I also managed to get ink all over the place and staining my hands…eek! Anyone know how to get india ink off your hands?

I’m also continuing with my watercoloring and illustration. The lady from last time is finished from a watercolor perspective, so I took her off my board to dry and will add details with pen and ink. I also started another lady with a house on her head…beginning watercolor stage here…

Now I’m going to take a break and wait for things to dry…will visit the other kootoyoo creative spaces. Check them out for inspiration!

Art Journal With Me – Making a Cover

linda — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:48:07 +0000

Ciao ciao everyone! This lovely Tuesday I invite you to art journal with me… yup! Let’s start a journal together and really experience the freedom of expression that art journaling can bring. I’ve been thinking about sharing my art journaling for a while and was really inspired to start this week because I finally received my Art Saves canvas panel in the mail and want to use it for the cover of a new journal.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out crescendoh.com to read all about how Art Saves from the life stories of real-world artists. In fact, I will also be a guest curator in May – sharing my story, art photos and fabulous links to artsy crafty goodness. Previously I never shared my art journaling because it was very personal and not something I wanted others to see. However, the process helped me to turn my focus around and what was once a way to vent and release all the bad things has now become a place for play and happy experimentation. My art journaling is still personal, but much more positive and so I am now ready to share it. I’m taking a fashion catalogue shown above that seriously has really nice sparkly thick paper. It’s really perfect as a base for my journal and you’ll be surprised what you can find around the house that can become an art journal. Having pages that are NOT blank also helps you beat the blank page fear as well! First thing I like to do is decorate my cover, so here goes…

I sketched out a little happy drawing on watercolor paper first…

Then I slapped on my blue watercolor for the background…

Then coloring in my drawing, one color at a time and letting it dry in between. (I cheated with a heat gun to dry the paper!) As you can see, I am not a trained watercolorist at all – I’m really messy because I’m impatient at times, but try my best to color in the lines and just fill in the colors I like.

Even though the watercoloring might be messy, I try to neaten it up by adding black outlining to my drawing…pretty cute, huh? You can see above how I plan to attach everything to the cover of my journal.

I’m not really done with the image yet though…I like to look at it from afar and add details with colored pencils and my latest craze – Copic twinkling like stars pens! Can’t resist some sparkly-ness and I guess it’s influence from Italy, because a lot of designs and clothing here have that added bling bling.

Above you can see how I went crazy with the sparkly pens and thickening the lines to add definition to the drawing. I couldn’t help but add hearts hanging from the top in silver pen too…

Glue everything down securely and tah-dah! A finished art journal cover…yay! Now you are going to do yours, right? Or perhaps you already have an art journal and just want to play along with a happy image? Go ahead and share in the comments section as I always like to see what folks come up with. Until next week for another art journal with me post!

Inspiration from past work

linda — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:48:48 +0000

Sometimes you can give yourself an inspirational boost by just looking at your own past work. I found a bunch of my old artwork and watercolors while organizing and cleaning. Even though there’s a lot of sketches or experiments, just seeing all the different pieces I’ve done reminded me of how far I’ve come. It felt really good to see the progression and it’s definitely inspiring me to do more. I want to keep moving forward and keep exploring to see where it all takes me.

I hope you can look back at your own work and see how much you’ve already accomplished. Or maybe an unfinished idea will spark up a new passion and sense of motivation? Don’t forget to give yourself a pat on the back and then use the positive energy to inspire yourself to Spring forward. Happy Monday folks!

Creative Workspace Printing and Watercoloring

linda — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:57:44 +0000

Things are still a bit messy in my workspace, but I’ve been testing printing on canvas paper which is pretty darn cool! I used to not like the canvas texture when painting and wanted to cover it up with globs of paint, but now the texture is sort of nice to me. BTW I just created a little clothesline by tacking up some twine – it’s nice for wall decoration!

I also broke out some watercolors (I used markers in some spots, too) and trying to practice more. I haven’t really found what it is I really like about watercolor that I can do – besides the fact that I am totally inconsistent. I think it’s important to experiment enough so you can take from it what fits with your work…something like that anyway – not wanting to get all spiritual talking here. I want today to be a lazy free day.

In fact, I’m checking out ALL the other creative workspaces on kootoyoo this week… there are always so many links and usually I don’t get to see them all.

Art Every Day Month 16

linda — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:42:19 +0000

Today has been a busy day! I went to town sewing up my little monkey plushie. He’s coming together, but I still have a lot of work to do. Hand sewing is definitely a trying process. If I could just stop poking myself, it would probably go faster as well. Anyhow, I feel it is a good use of an old sweater to make this little monkey (who jumped off the bed and hit his head)!

I also worked heavily on my royal ladies to finish them up – or at least a first draft of all of them. I might still change some details, but glad to have gotten this far in the series…I present you with the Countess, the Princess and the Lady!

Art Every Day Month 14

linda — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:51:00 +0000

Weekends are family time for me and today was no exception. I have been out of the house since morning and just back after midnight. I was able to get some quick outlining done in the ATCs I’ve been working on, but didn’t have a chance to scan and post until now. Here in Italy it’s already the next day…but better late than never! Still a work in progress…

Art Every Day Month 13

linda — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:10:59 +0000

Another royal character in my series today…I present you with The Duchess! I went for a less cute look on this one as I would like to portray different personalities in each character. She’s still a bit cute, but with some edge in my mind. I feel like I still want to tinker with her a bit…so perhaps this is not final. I do like to make prints however, so I can look at my ladies framed, up-close, from afar…all views! These gloomy days make it difficult to take photos, so I apologize for the bright flash that washes out the background texture of the paper.

I am also working on some ATCs – my first ones – for some mail/art exchanges. It’s exciting and yet again, scary as well. I hope the recipients will like them when I finish. I have been doodling these characters upside down and decided to create a series of ATCs. Amazingly coincidental is that I recently also heard a song by Paloma Faith titled Upside Down. You can watch the video of a live performance of Upside Down on YouTube. It says exactly what I want to express, so it’s perfect inspiration and musical accompaniment while working on these pieces. How cool is that? The world works in mysterious ways indeed! Go figure!

Art Every Day Month 12

linda — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:59:44 +0000

Wow. I just have to say again, thank you to everyone who stopped by and left me words of encouragement and feedback on yesterday’s post. Grazie mille…because I really couldn’t have done all of this and gotten to this point without the support of all of you. I’m so happy that the internet allows us to be a community, even though we are spread out all over the world. Talk about amazing times! Also, thank you to Leah from Creative Every Day for starting Art Every Day Month…because this initiative has really been great motivation for me. We aren’t yet half-way through and I feel as if it’s a big turning point in my journey already. So darn cool! Gahh!!!

Also, I really love what Leah posted for today’s AEDM check-in:

You are amazingly creative. Yes, you, reading this. You are an artist. Believe it. Know it. Drink it in. And keep on creating.

I am taking it all in and continuing to work on my little royal series of portraits. They are all women with fantastic hairstyles and royal titles…a bit of props for all the females out there, the multiple titles and ranks we all hold, the multiple hats (or hairpieces and styles) we wear but that deep inside, we are all just little girls at heart. Thoughts still stirring in my mind as I work on these pieces, of course. For today, I present you with The Empress!

Art Every Day Month 11

linda — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:36:25 +0000

Okay…I think I can do this…

So, I have been working on my watercolor pieces that are now part collage and part digital illustration. Definitely some ups and downs in trying to get what is in my mind out into reality and today I had a great breakthrough. Let me go back and say that this project started as watercoloring various hairstyles (inspiration from watching a lot of Mad Men), but then an unfortunate coffee spill got the papers stuck together and ripped some portions. I was a bit demoralized and didn’t know what to do, leaving my watercolors in a pile of other papers. In my previous post, I was blessed with the idea of collaging over the ripped parts to cover up…but then I was stuck in terms of how I wanted to continue. More time passed.

Finally, I took everything into the computer and started working on adding digital elements. I am so loving this method – I suppose you call it mixed media – although I really feel like everything is mixed media because you do what you need to do to get the look you want. I don’t know that I have any favorite medium, because they all have their pros and cons and serve different purposes. While working on these pieces I sort of had this epiphany of how they represent the jill of all trades that I am…that I can combine techniques and methods to get that image burned in my mind out into the world. Getting it out makes me feel so much better, it’s weird and I am definitely feeling weird right now in writing this and sharing these thoughts. As I have noted before, taking these risks in revealing your true thoughts and feelings…it’s scary. I am scared in so many different ways, but at the same time I am excited with those good butterflies in my stomach. They are telling me it’s a good type of anxiousness, because I want to share my work with all of you and excited about it. Whew…deep breath. So here goes…

Okay. I’m bracing myself for your thoughts and comments. For a few moments here and there, I still have those doubts and fears – that people will think I’m just silly for sharing my little work and making such a big deal out of it. This piece is actually part of a series, but I think I have this first one the way I want. The first picture shows her framed up so I can really take a look at her – sorry for the weird glare from the glass! I included some close-ups so you can see the textured paper behind it all and variation of media used…watercolor, collage and digital. You probably can’t imagine how many transfigurations this image has gone through.

Now that I’ve shared, I’m sort of feeling like I want to laugh and cry at the same time. This is really weird. Deep breaths…