painting

My second favorite media after oil paints are watercolors. Even though it is considered as one of the most difficult media, the lightness and washed out effects that you can achieve with watercolors are beyond beautiful.

I’ve done two landscape paintings inspired by the watercolors that my art teacher saw in her hotel room on one of her recent trips. This one is winter, another one is autumn landscape, which I’ll also post shortly.

I love the layering technique used in this painting and the transparency of these layers adds depth and perspective.

I had to change my signature and you’ll notice that I only used my initials – NM – on the recent paintings – I didn’t want it to occupy too much space and distract from the painting.

Do you like this painting? I’m planning to explore more of this technique and I prepared a few photographs that I’ve taken during my walks around the town. I want to turn them into multilayer watercolor paintings. If you have any suggestions, or your own photos that you would like to provide to turn them into watercolor paintings, please send them to 1happyblog@outlook.com.

December 22, 2014December 22, 2014 by natella111 Categories: My ArtTags: art, artist, artwork, artwork of the day, landscape, Natella, Natella Mammadova, NM, one happy blog, painting, watercolor, watercolor painting, winter, winter landscape 4 Comments

Artwork of the day: Happy Family

You might have seen my inspiration post recently, where I told you about lovely Kiana Underwood, her sweet family photos and her awesome blog Tulipina.

You might have also noticed that my inspiration posts turn into drawing / artwork of the day posts sooner or later 🙂

This time I was working with one of my favorite media – watercolors. The challenge was with using my paintbrushes. Apparently, I have either big ones that are great for the background, but not so good for smaller objects, or really thin one for the tiniest details. I had few in the middle, but they were synthetic brushes and while they’re great for acrylic paints, with watercolors they just don’t work the way I want them to work. I’ll need to buy few more kolinsky sable paintbrushes on my next trip to the art store.This time I tried to solve the problem by using only the tip of the brush for the faces and clothing.

I’m overall pleased with the result and I enjoyed painting this sketch. While it may not be a 100% photocopy and that wasn’t the point of this watercolor sketch anyway. The point was to show emotions, closeness, family ties and holding on to each other and to me that is a way to build a happy family.

August 23, 2014August 23, 2014 by natella111 Categories: My Art, UncategorizedTags: artwork, artwork of the day, drawing, Happy Family, Kiana Underwood, one happy blog, painting, Tulipina, watercolor 10 Comments

What I love about drawing with pastels is the softness of the material and easiness of mixing and shading. What I dislike about pastel drawings is that you have to be very careful with them and store it securely behind the glass because unlike oil paintings pastel drawing are very prone to damage.

Now here is the story of what happened to my drawing of a lovely lady in the hat. Some time ago I spilled some water on it by accident and I almost cried when I saw how much effort has been wasted.

But then I gathered myself together and decided to correct and cover all the spots that were left by the spilled water.

Moral #1: Always frame and store properly all the drawings and paintings right after I finish them.

Moral #2: Everything happens for a reason. While covering and reworking on damaged spots, I noticed few other things that could be corrected / done better, so there’s always a room for improvement! And if I see every situation as a challenge, not a problem, I can always find a blessing and get an awesome outcome!

Now, I like the corrected version of the drawing even better than the original. And what do you think? I’m posting before and after pictures for comparison. Please let me know your opinion in the comments below!

Have a happy day!

Before

After