Surroundings

Looking To Stretch Myself!

Aside from doing my Daily Art Practice aka a Watercolour Sketch a Day (mostly A5 size), for a while now I’ve been doing A4 size Watercolours. In my daily art practice I try new things (and make lots of mistakes) and occasionally, I will do one that I would like to do a larger version of. I still make mistakes when I do the larger ones, though. I’ve never agreed with ‘practice makes perfect’, I think it should be ‘practice makes better’. Hopefully, over time I will continue to get better!

I’m looking to stretch myself in my Art-practice at every opportunity.

  • Arto Watercolour Paper 300gsm Cold Pressed Medium Surface – 100% Cotton Acid Free
  • Winsor and Newton Artists paints
  • Neef brushes
  • Manuscript Dip-pens
  • Art Spectrum Artists Pigmented Black ink

These are my latest:

“Reeds In The Snow”
“Barren”
“Coastal Wash”
“Dreaming”
“On The Coast”
“Cliff-face”

Till next time!

Written by David Johnson

February 2022

Transformation

Expressing Oneself

Daily Art Practice Continues…

Since reaching Day 1,091 of a Watercolour Sketch a Day (3 years) recently, I’ve been endeavouring to do less tutorials and using reference photos, i.e. do original sketches. When time permits, I will do ‘on-site’ sketches. Most of these will probably be done on weekends.

Here are a few of my latest sketches.

Till next time!

Written by David Johnson

13 February 2022

I Climbed Upon A Mountaintop

Time Alone With Books

My 1st Junk Journal

Over time, I’ve been using and researching different types of Journals and of course (as many have discovered) have found out that there’s no such thing as ‘the perfect bought journal’.

It seems the best way to is to make your own. I’ve been watching plenty of YouTube videos, looking at examples online etc and recently, decided to take the plunge.

I chose a rather simple version to start and purchased Watercolour paper, card stock, different weights of paper plus I already had some Calligraphy paper. I decided to start off with an A5 Journal made up of 20 folded A4 sheets. For the cover I’ve used the promo backing cardboard from a packet of Certificate paper. I intend on pasting images on the cover later.

Instead of glueing the signature in, I chose to attempt to sew it instead. I haven’t had much practice at sewing in my life and I am reasonably happy with the result, though I think I can do better next time.

I am pleased to have finally made one as I had been thinking about doing it for some time.

The next thing was to decide actually what to put in it as I hadn’t really decided what the Journal was for…in terms of a theme. I write Poetry and do Watercolour and Line and Wash, normally so I thought a good place to start was to include some images related to the tools I use for create images.

I’m really enjoying my 1st Junk Journal and I already have plans to make more, including one with two or three signatures. Till next time.

Keep creating!

David Johnson

January 2022

New Day

Clearing The Cobwebs