hi ern. love you. first of all, the ink + watercolor flowers are so super cool. i hope you do make some homemade cards like that and then send me a love note which i could keep special. second of all, those trees are so fun. i don't know what a crumpled wax paper is but it is a very pretty look. please continue to make things.

I could never be sick of your watercolours. They are so beautiful. I want one framed on my wall.

I made my first homemade cards today, although they weren't folded and enveloped and pretty, but they DID make the people who received them smile. That's the point, yeah?

Crumpled wax paper is just like a sheet of wax paper... and you crumple into a ball. Dunzo.

I WILL SEND YOU THINGS YES.

<3<3 Thank you so much. I have some new ones for you today!

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Lesson 14: There's no wrong way to eat a Reese's



I love a tutorial that shows you different ways to accomplish the same form, different brush strokes or strategies to try to accomplish variations on a theme. I found this cool feather tutorial with THREE different outcomes... I'll leave it up to you to pick your favorite. It's cool to know there isn't only one way to do something. Like, maybe your style is realistic, or minimalist, or fanciful, or whatever, and you can create something to meet your aesthetic using the supplies you've got.

Assuming you can find the tutorial to show you how to do it, I guess...

I am an absolute sucker for the watercolor and ink combination

Oh, me too! I've been trying some new things that I'll show soon enough, but I really like the mixed media look.


Lesson 15: Combine previous learning



If you remember lesson 11, I combined my galaxy and tree tutorials to get so this nightscape. I think I have some work left to get my tree technique right, and someday I will get the right paper (this stuff absorbs water too fast), but I'm very pleased with this first effort.

errrrrrn. i want to live in your galaxy. it looks so fun and inviting. and also, i really like the colors. submit post.

SUBMIT POST. Thanks, little boo. I appreciate you showing up and commenting so often! Please come live in my galaxy far away and long ago.

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Lesson 16: Ogres have layers



Apparently the secret of watercolor painting is to find balance between the wet-on-wet painting style and 'glazing', which is applying a series of layers and letting them dry between. I had to use both styles of painting to make this little freckly pear. So ta-da, my little freckly pear!

Lesson 17: Cake also has layers



Hey, friends! Here's another example of glazing, with way fewer layers than in the pear. With the rose, you just paint C shapes outward from the center. Lightly, and then darker each layer. The yellow notes add depth...? That's what they say, at least.

Anyway, LOOK AT MY PRETTY NEW PAINTBRUSHES.

I LOVE these Ern! I'm going to try some of these sometime with my kids' cheap-o watercolors

<3 Did you ever do this? I want to see your watercolor experimentation.


Lesson 18: Just keep swimming swimming swimming







I know I haven't posted anything up in a VERY long while, but I didn't realize quite how long it had been. I've been painting painting painting in the interim, mostly a ton of tutorials I found on Pinterest and Youtube, and I understand watercolor a lot better than I did, although I'm not sure I can make it do what I want it to do most of the time.

But anyway, that being said, I thought I'd post a few of the things I've been working on over the past few months, a few per post yada yada. I did prompts through September and October (see my Seektober thread!), so when I was working toward a specific theme, I'll let you know.

LMAO I did not I should get on that sooner rather than later though

I LOVE THE &

Whattt this is so good. The unicorn and hedgehog and squares with flower/weather thingies are so good. woahhh

I feel like I saw your hedgehog already (maybe on twitter?) but I don't remember if I told you how cute he was. And your unicorn is lovely with that rainbow mane

I would love to see what you do <3. I like that there are emojis for everything I want to paint!

THANK YOU and thanks for visiting. The hedgehog was definitely copied from a tutorial, but the others came out of my brain!

I'm sure you did. I'm a big attention hog with my paintings on Twitter because I crave APPROVAL. <3<3

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Lesson 19: Art with a Friend











Kath (sweetpinkpixie) enticed me into following prompts with her during September... maybe she'll be nice enough to post her finished product in her thread too. There was something really conducive to my creative spirit in having 'homework' every day and a friend to share with. These are just five random ones from that week (the spoiler tag is the prompt).

Sorry these pictures are so huge and not resized to be easier to look at, but they're straight from my phone.

Lesson 20 - Keep on Arting with Friends











Just more more more of the September prompts. Hiii, friends.

Lesson 21 - Learn to please yourself because there's no pleasing everyone else











OKAY, last of the September prompts, and thank you for playing.

I legitimately thought this was a place where wanna-be artists like myself would go... but then BAM I'm hit with a series of amazing talent everything I've seen is gorgeous! The sense you need to have to come up with those doodles, wow :3

It definitely started it's life as a thread for me to show my dabblings, and still is, but I sort of hope that the thread now feels like a place where people can watch what I've learned and tried out and come to believe that anyone is capable of learning. If I am... anyone really is. <3<3


Lesson 22: Follow the Leader





So now that I've exhausted all my September prompts, I thought I might share my current project. I've been inspired to try to work on a specific skill set for the month of November, in this case working on landscapes and scenic vignettes. Ultimately, I've always wanted to keep a sketchbook when I travel, and I want to develop the skills to be able to capture what I see.

Anyway, one of the first things I did was look for tutorials on Youtube and Pinterest that I could follow to develop some new skills. Here are two early ones.

tl;dr these are my versions of tutorials, so very much not original concepts.

hello ern i love all of your arts but i especially love rainbow row. looks straight out of a magical children's story book or like a piece from a glamorous british art museum

Rainbow Row is in Charleston, which is ABOUT the same distance for both of us. So we can go together! I think it looks magical TOO.

THANKS FOR VISITING.


Lesson 23: Master the basics or whatever





Hey, friends! More examples from my working off tutorials and learning cool new tricks from the experts. Like how to remove color when you've put in too much or if you want to create clouds... that's a good one. Or when to bleed colors together and when you have to wait for things to dry (no, REALLY dry... I keep making this mistake with 'seems dry enough').

ANYWAY, thanks for visiting! MWAH.

okay perfect ern and ariana trip to Charleston i am 10/10 down and all packed up ready to go!!!!!!!

your field / landscape is so serene, friend. i could see it so perfectly on a lil mug or a postcard or hung up on a wall in petite frame. and LOOK AT THOSE SHADOWY BERRY COLORED SKYSCRAPERS what a delicious skyline

OKAY PERFECT. I like this plan.

I think a couple of these little vignettes would look great on a postcard or in a little frame. I don't have an eye for tiny decorations, though, so keep these ideas COMING.


Lesson 24: Don't stress about the mistakes





More tutorials, this time two of my favorites. I can't tell you how UGLY these looked during the painting and I despaired the whole time, and then things merged and dried and they ended up looking like... purposeful and planned out. So. Don't despair?

These are so prettyyyy!!! Ahhh! The rocks and the arch thing... it's just so niceee.

Oh, THANK you, and thank you for dropping in to comment. <3<3<3




Lesson 25: I promise we're done with tutorials



Okay, this is my last tutorial. This one required me to trust the process, because it had a lot of little things that looked weird until they came together. I don't know how these master watercolorists can see through the steps to know what needs done for the final product, but I'm hoping I start to get that 3D vision at some point.

it's been a hot minute since I commented on things but you are really turning it out, Ern! So pretty and I loooooooooooooove the seascape so much