In the blink of an eye...

 ...Ardith Goodwin's Journal of Interesting course is closing, after six weeks of intense art journal work. That work has included research, testing, exploring ideas, trying out new tools/techniques, looking for trends and patterns in our work, etc.  It has been a very good class, and it doesn't seem like it could be time for it to end.  That said, I'm close to having a full 44-page Visual Journal completed with useful and interesting efforts from the class!

Photos of some of my latest pieces -- finished in the sense I'm no longer working on them -- are below.

The first one...an owl...I really like how there is depth to the feather work especially from the middle to bottom of the page.  The figure was done with activated watercolor pencils (yes, the face too).  Amazing that this could be pencil work, isn't it?  

These little darlings are experiments created from playing with circles, curves and spirals to make bird-like shapes and then playing with showing them in different poses.  They were so fun to work with!

  

The piece below had a plain olive green background originally though needed something else.  So, turquoise squares were first added at the top.  They were too intense, so they've been covered up with translucent green.  Then I added the yellow squares in clusters around the background, and I like them.  The piece was done with Japanese watercolors except for the squares that are acrylics.

This talon image is a fairly realistic size compared with the hand it is gripping.  The red in the hand is a bit too strong but couldn't be watered down further than this.  In looking at it later, the red actually works to indicate hurt/pain or a crushing sensation.  The page was done with Japanese watercolors.

You can see in some of my earlier posts, more efforts from this course.  I'd say overall, I've met with some great successes while recognizing I have much more to learn and practice.  I've really enjoyed the adventure of using watercolor in my journal...an exploration that has been really surprising.  I think I'll still be working with acrylics, even though I've learned a ton with this foray into watercolor!