I wasn’t planning to post today, but the mess on my desk was so inspiring to me that I thought I’d snap a photo and share it. I’m not someone who needs a perfectly tidy desk to work, which you probably know by looking at most of my art journaling photos. This was just such a happy pile of color that I thought I would stop and appreciate it. The first image on the left is a floral series that I just started. I have these ideas which I think are going to be “the one” but then I put so much pressure on it that I have a hard time finishing it. Does anyone else do that? So I’m attempting to work on many things at once so that I don’t get too carried away about any one thing. This can help, but then also sometimes means that I procrastinate to the point of not putting the finishing touches on things. The swatches are Dr. Ph. Martin’s India inks and I will be gluing those into my art reference book that I shared yesterday. I haven’t tried doing much color mixing with those yet and so it was surprising and quite pleasing to see the results. I will definitely be needing to mix those colors in future projects. [A note about swatching, I definitely recommend using decent quality mixed media or watercolor paper, as it will give much more beautiful (and accurate) results. I have done swatches on printer paper, and the results are definitely not the same.] The abstract piece behind the swatches is a work in progress and definitely need some more neutrals! The little book is one of my mini junk journals. I am planning to fill these journals with loose floral sketches/paintings in a variety of styles and mediums just for practice. I had a lot of misprints for my boys’ homeschool work pages and so those show up in the junk journals a lot. And the round canvas was originally a pastel abstract piece which I felt was still needing something so I am adding a bouquet over top. I really love painting bouquets on the round panels. It needs some more filling in and details but I am enjoying how it’s coming along so far. And the black and yellow scrap behind is how I use up paint, be it oil or acrylic. Anytime I have paint left on my palette, I can be tempted to use it up in my painting (but often regret it), and so instead I either use it to start a background on a new painting, add some swipes to an in-progress abstract or paint it on to scrap paper to be used in collage later. So there’s my studio notes for today! It is such a beautiful day outside, so I’m going to get baby girl up from her nap and take her outside. Her favorite 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!