Welcome to the first week of the Chronically Hopeful 52-Week Art Project! This week, being week 27 of the year, we started with A Day At The Seaside. I’ll be sharing my creations for this prompt below as well as adding it to the gallery. Feel free to jump in anytime if you’d like to join me on this slow, no-stress, creative adventure.
Project Overview
- A creative project or those of us who can’t create daily, for whatever reason.
- There is 1 prompt per week to interpret in any way & take your time with.
- Use any medium (collage, clay, paint, photography, baking, knitting, lego, fabric, etc)
- Share your creations to the gallery & be inspired by others creations.
- No social media accounts needed.
Visit this page for more details.
Wk27 Prompt: A Day At The Seaside
I will be honest, I struggled to think of what to create for this prompt. So I settled on doodles of various things that come to mind when I think of spending a day at the beach. It’s a good way to play with all my supplies after so many years of neglecting them. Getting reaquainted.
I’ve not actually been for a day at the beach in years. Well over a decade now, I believe. I do miss it. So this week’s creations are filled with doodles of things I associate with spending a day at the beach: swimming, towels, fruit, palm trees, sunshine, shells, waves, exploring rock pools, umbrellas, and of course lots of ice-cream!
In the end, I made various pieces. One thing inspired another, and by the end of the week, I actually have a couple of sketches ready for future prompts too. They’re seaside adjacent themes, but they would suit other prompts better, so I’ll show you a sneaky peek at them here, but they won’t be properly featured until it’s their time.
Watercolour / Gouache Doodles
I started by dividing 2x A5 pages into equal squares. My initial thought was to create background washes and then draw over them, but I ended up sketching the designs first and then just coloured them with gouache.
From left to right (click to zoom):
- Pencil grid on wtercolour paper
- Seaside sketches
- Close up of seaside sketches
- A sneak peek at the second set of sketches – seashells
I have been spending most of my time in the living room lately, even while painting. I have a desk for art, but the fan is in the living room in front of the sofa, and I need help to move it. So I used my laptop desk, which is a swivvel type of over the sofa desk on wheels, right in front of the fan. Much of my project this week was also done in low light, since I keep the blinds down during the heat of the day.
What I’ve learned this week, is that I prefer vibrant, saturated colour and bold lines. Of all the art I made, this one is my least favourite because of the pale watercolour vibes. I feel like it’s missing contrast and definition.
So of course I went in with a grey fineliner to define some of the outlines, and even used some coloured markers and pencils to add details and definition to some doodles.
I like individual doodles, but I don’t love the page as a whole. It’s fine, though, I have learned something about myself and what kind of art I prefer at this time in my life, so it’s still a positive experience overall.
Mixed Media Drawings
The second piece I worked on, was this set of doodles in my new disc-bound art journal. It started out as just a place to test my acrylic paint pens, after not using them for years. Just a page full of shapes. How many of my artworks begin, it seems.
This page reminded me of mosaic tiles and terazzo flooring we had in Italy, so I turned the page and started working on a page full of intricate mosaic tiles. Another sneaky peek only, this piece will be worked on more when the time comes for the mosaic prompt. Back to the seaside!
I grabbed a waterproof ink pen and started doodling on each shape. I initially started with just patterns: waves, scales, and shapes inspired by the top of sandcastles. Then I started drawing things related to spending a day at the beach: umbrella, swimming costume, fruit, sunshine, palm trees, water, fish, shells and ice-cream.
Craving more contrast, I started adding details with markers, paint pens and a black brush pen which created some variation in line thickness. Things were starting to look more vibrant and interesting with all the added details.
The paint pens create a bright backdrop that is slightly textured. The black brush pen provides movement with the varying line widths as well as a bit of shine, the ink reflects light, which was unexpected, but interesting. Then the coloured markers created some areas of shading and depth. I quite happy with how the felt-tip markers worked on top of the acrylic paint pens.
And so the piece that started out as my least favourite, became my most favourite for this week.
Bonus Creation: Wavy Embroidery
The first seaside inspired creation this week was actually on my embroidery project!
I’ve been working on this project on and off for about a month now. It’s my attempt at reaquainting myself with embroidery, after decades, as well as learning new techniques.
So this week I practiced chain stitch in a very wavy pattern. I love how this little patch turned out.
So, there you have it. My seaside inspired creations for this week.
Again, this project is to help me stay consistent, but not stressed out. I get to create as little or as much as I can and want to in a week and I have a theme to help inspire my creations.
Anything goes as long as I’m making time to use my imagination, creativity and craft supplies – practicing the hobbies that I enjoy.
Next Prompt: Summer Blooms
This one should be equally as colourful! If you’d like to jump in and join me on this creative adventure, you’re very welcome. I’d love to see how you interpret the prompts.
You can upload an image of your creations to the gallery, or just browse others:
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