Chasing A Bloom

 This entry was originally posted on Friday, August 10, 2012

Sometimes as you are painting, you start to watch a bloom or blossom spread over your paper in the wrong place!!

This might put you into a panic and you quickly grab your brush and dab at it with a wet brush, hoping that by adding more water it will go away.

Not so.

It just makes it worse!!! 

Aaaaaa!!!

What to do????

 

Instead of grabbing a wet brush,

grab a soft, dry hake brush instead.

 

 

Gently brush over the bloom to help evenly distribute the water that is already in the paper.

The brush will also gently lift some of that excess water.

The only trick with this though is that the bloom needs to still be in the growing stage.

Try to catch it before it stops growing and before the paper becomes too dry.

Hake Hake

Illustration of Hake Brush

Another illustration that did not make it into my book is of a hake brush. I use this brush when I am applying large washes of water and/or color. The above illustration is the combined one of photo and painting.

Here is the painted version:

And here is the photo:

It was a challenge to recreate my supplies as they were in the photograph so I could seamlessly combine them. But as with all challenges, there is an opportunity to learn. Not only did I have the opportunity to perfect painting and drawing skills, but I also had to think about photography, layout and design, and the technical skills involved when playing and working digitally. 

Although I am not a book designer, my editor, Kristin Conlin, requested that I do a rough layout of each one of my pages and entries. I really enjoyed figuring out what to place where and if it was going to work. Once I did the layouts, Kristin sent them off to an actual book designer, Breanna Loebach, who cleaned it up, tweaked it, and did an amazing job of creating such a super awesome looking book. 

Through all this, I discovered how much I enjoy book design and layout as I played around in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. 

I also rediscovered how much I love color. I tended to paint my supplies just a bit brighter and more colorful.