365 Days of Art: Day 87 – Watercolor Cloudy Night Sky

The challenge: Create some form of visual art, no matter how small, each day for a full year.

Tonight I decided to do a project from Mako’s book: No-Fail Watercolor: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Painting with Confidence. It seems I can finish these projects in one night, so I may try to work through this book before returning to the Dreamscapes book I’ve been working through. This has the most amount of instruction per step of all the books I’ve worked with, but at times it’s hard to follow because it’s broken down all the way to “wipe your brush in the edge of the cup.” I lose my place and can’t find it again.

Here it is. It took me about half and hour once I got all the equipment out.

One big thing I have noticed with following instructions from a book: the difference in paper size affects everything. I have this feeling she was working with paper one-half the size of mine. This had the biggest effect on brush size. She suggested using an 8. The 8 didn’t work for me; I couldn’t fill the paper with pigment the was I was supposed to. I ended up switching to a 1/2” flat brush for the sky. I liked the results much better.

I also loved using the sponge for the leaves. I really must do this more often. It made painting leaves so easy!

Have a great rest of your Sunday night, everyone! The grind begins again tomorrow.

Daily Yoga: I did this bedtime Yoga with Kassandra video today.

About M. B. Weston

M. B. Weston is an award-winning fantasy, pulp, young adult, steampunk, and paranormal author. Her attention to procedure and detail gives her works an authentic gritty, military feel that takes an adventure tale to the level of a true page-turner. Weston’s writing attracts both fantasy and non-fantasy readers, and her audience ranges from upper-elementary students to adults. A gifted orator, Weston has been invited as a guest speaker to numerous writing and science fiction/fantasy panels at conventions across the US, including DragonCon, BabelCon, NecronomiCon, and Alabama Phoenix Festival. She has served on panels with such authors as Sherrilyn Kenyon, J. F. Lewis, Todd McCaffrey, and Jonathan Maberry. Weston has spoken to thousands of students and adults about the craft of writing and has been invited as the keynote speaker at youth camps and at several schools throughout the US.

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