Above is the 2-day spread and below are the individual pages with a bit of the stories.
Category: Painting
Today I’m posting four days in two, two-page spreads (above and below). Plus I have a question for my readers at the end of the post.
Below are the individual pages and their stories.
Above is my journal spread with my illustrated Wordles and in today’s dreams, some naughty teens and federal crimes. Below are close-ups of each page with the dream stories.
Above is my journal spread with Wordles and Pictures and my dreams for January 4 and 5. Below are close-ups of each page and some easier-to-read stuff from the pages so if (big IF) you are interested in reading my weird dreams, you won’t have to squint at my scribbles on the page.
Here are my Wordles and dreams for January 1-3. Above is the two-day spread for January 2-3 and below are the individual pages for all three days with some comments.
Black Crowned Night Heron I saw at the park today
Continuing from the previous post, here are the rest of December’s Wordles and Pictures and dream sketches.
When I started my blog, JanasJournal.com in 2006, it was an illustrated daily journal where I shared my world and my creative journeys through many different media. Now I’ve returned to my journaling roots and I’ve found inspiration from a surprising source: the daily Wordle puzzle, which I solve and then illustrate each day.
While my journeys may have become more interior thanks to the pandemic, illustrating where my imagination and dreams take me keeps me entertained. But I’m also including sketches from places I go in real life, like Point Isabel above, a huge park along the SF Bay where dogs can run free, roll in the grass, splash in mud puddles and rinse off in the bay.
I’m using a page-a-day Hobonichi “Cousin” journal with weird, very thin, lightly-gridded paper along with fountain pens, drawing pens, watercolors and Tombow markers.
I will share more about the materials as I get the backlog of 3 months of journaling, dreams, Wordles and pictures posted.
By the time I was done with the drawing for this painting I was really bored of the subject and couldn’t motivate myself to paint it until the idea of pink poodles prancing on the page popped up.
Those pink poodles reminded me of how much fun I used to have drawing and painting anything that amused me, back in 2006 when I started this blog as a daily sketch journal 17 years ago.
From my crazy dreams to local dive bars to what was in my fridge, it was always fun. I’m doing that kind of sketching again, and will be posting them soon. Meanwhile, back to this silly portrait.
I was super tired the day I painted it and couldn’t come up with an interesting limited palette so I challenged myself with just two colors: WN Permanent Rose and Winsor Blue Green Shade. It wasn’t a great combination for a portrait but it was perfect for pink poodles.
I had a hard time getting an accurate scan of the painting which has a bit more turquoise color in the background and a little warmer color pink on the poodles and her skin. But even the correct colors are still pretty weird.
You can click on the image above to see an enlarged version of the preliminary sketches, the corrections needed and the reference photo.
When I saw the reference photo of fantastic artist Richard Banks in a Sktchy watercolor class, I wasn’t immediately inspired but decided to give it a try anyway. Maybe because I had nothing invested in the outcome, just in the learning process, I ended up liking the painting for what it is.
My first attempt at drawing him was pretty far off so I didn’t try to correct it, I just started over. I was satisfied with the second attempt above.
Even though his photo was mostly cool colors, I decided to try to use the Zorn Palette and see if I could make it work. The pigments I used were WN Ivory Black, Utrecht Cadmium Red Light, Holbein Yellow Ochre.
I did cheat slightly and did a preliminary very light wash of Winsor Blue/Green Shade over the whole sheet of paper. Typically with the Zorn palette, the black is used as a blue but this Ivory Black seemed way too warm for it to work.
I watched the interesting class taught by Kirsten Britt on Sktchy and then, as usual, I painted the subject completely differently than was instructed. Kirsten’s work is beautiful but is all about splotches (here’s her version on IG).
I used an odd limited palette for this one which made it a little challenging. The pigments are DS Perylene Scarlet, DS Cobalt Teal and WN Raw Sienna. It wasn’t possible to get any real darks so I stuck with a high key painting.
I got very close with my sketch, even with the camera distortion; I only needed a few small adjustments.
Jana Bouc, Artist 