A slightly messy...

...photo.

I was labelling each one with a number and made a mistake with 4.1...I initially labelled it 3.2. Will explain in a minute. To correct it meant deleting all numbers and start doing them individually and saving them individually. No way! Once I make a mistake I carry on making more, so that correction will have to stay!

I was experimenting with the brush felt tips I was using yesterday. Yesterday's painting did my eyes in, it might not have looked detailed but it was a lot of concentration, and no good for my dry eyes and migraines.

Have a read of yesterday's blog if you wonder why I am persevering with the felt tips. Briefly they have emotional memories because J. bought a lot of those felt tip pens for me in the 20 years we had before he died. I can still remember where we were when he bought them, and even the conversations we had, and more. When I say he bought a lot, I mean quite a few hundred or lots more (I haven't counted them...they are stored in cardboard boxes now...and I do go through them from time to time), he thought I should use felt tips. To be frank with you, I wasn't all that bothered about felt tips at the time, although I used them a bit. He bought me boxed sets, individual ones, and so on, and he bought me over 150 different coloured greys. He had a thing for greys. He believed in mixed media even though he was 20 years older than me. I wasn't sure of the idea of mixed media at that time.

Anyway, I wanted to use them as part of my challenge to myself of a pic or painting a day every day in 2017, and this involves trying new things. With the weather getting warmer, I can now sit outdoors in the potting shed. So I thought the felt tips would be easy to use as I sit in the potting shed. But my plan didn't quite work yesterday. This was because although I did a picture of the celendines in my garden, and I thought it would be simple and quick to do (to avoid straining my eyes), it turned out it wasn't. It took me far too long and I had to concentrate too much.

So I was very disappointed because I thought using these felt tips would be an easy way of producing a free and easy picture. Part of the problem is me, my training in the 1960's in the printing industry was precise stuff and drawing and illustration. It seems ingrained in me.

This is why I like the encaustic wax and iron because it is a total new medium to me and I can gaily paint, although last Friday I did do a rather detailed encaustic flower painting...my old training sneaking in...I need to go back to the freer way of doing my earlier encaustic work, which I will do.

I looked online for ideas with my felt tip brush pens but I couldn't find anything that suited me. When I say felt tip brush pens, they are not brush as such, but a lovely large bendy felt tip which allows for different strokes. I do have a few actual pens which are brush painting pens (again, J. bought me these). But I would love to make use of these brush felt tips. Make use of the memories.

In the early hours of this morning I had another peak online, but nothing. Then I looked at the weather app to see if it was sunny today, and obviously the main pic on it was night sky and stars because it was 3 am by this time, and across the phone screen went an animated shooting star, and then another...I thought I was imagining things...but I went into the garden and lo and behold there were shooting stars in the night sky!!!

So I watched them for an hour or so...then went back to bed. When I woke up I knew what I was going to do with the felt tips.

Not exactly Chinese painting, not exactly Sumi-e, but a sort of mix and possibly mixed media a bit.

The above is my first experiment in this. The dandelions are out in my garden and already seeding. So I took a photo and worked from that. But I didn't really need the photo, I wanted something I could just do out of my head.

Number 1 is all black, a bit like Sumi-e or Chinese painting. (I accidentally smudged it a bit). By the way I used a black biro to do a bit of dandelion clock detail (it satisfied my need to do some detail). It took less than 5 minutes to paint, and was easy on the eyes to do.

Number 2 is all colour done in a similar manner. I don't like this one at all.

Number 3 is a mix of number 1 and number 2.

Number 4 I used the black brush pen to detail the petals. It was too clumsy and this is only a small painting (intentionally so). I don't like it.

Number 3.1 is the same number 3 but with black biro detail on the petals. Very quick to do, like doodling a bit. And I like this one.

Number 4.1 is number 4 again, but with some water colour splattered on...big mistake...horrid.

So I think the way forward might be the techniques used on 3.1. It is a way of doing a picture that is easy to do in the potting shed on sunny days. And for the moment I might do things I have seen in my garden, but from memory.

Each of the above pics took me less than 5 minutes to do. So, I look at something in my garden, observe it, then do it freely from memory. See how that works for a bit.

So I might do this tomorrow. See how I feel. I will be pleased if this way of using the felt tips works out.

Oh, and the last pic, number 5, is of another thing J. bought me. It screws together, is very compact, and is easy to keep in the potting shed, and using one of those water brush pens. Two of the stacks are missing, I will have to search for them. It is 36 colours altogether.

So these are my sketches today for my challenge to myself of a pic a day every day in 2017.