05 - Creation

I wanted to document the creation of at least one of my creations. Remember, of course, that this is a new hobby for me. I've been doing this all of 10 days. I did, I must admit, take watercolor painting classes, when I was in fifth grade. But I haven't used watercolors since then. The results, therefore, are sometimes startling, and sometimes a real mucky mess!

I begin by picking out my words that I want to use, and cover them up with some post-it notes... just the sticky part. Then I put gesso over the whole thing and allow it to dry. It is suggested that several coats be applied and allowed to dry... But I'm way too impatient for that. I did try it once, but found no real difference between one or two coats.

Once it is ready to paint on, I look back at my conceptual drawing, a scribble in the margin of my second copy of S.F.R:

Then I sketch it for "real" in the prepared book, using watercolor pencils. You can see the gesso on my hand:



Next I color in the rough sketch with the water color pencils, and prepare to "paint with water":

Next, to the parts I want to, I apply pure water, to bring out the color of the watercolor pencils:

When I'm done with that part of the painting, I then start to use other water colors to fill in the rest of the details.

After I finished the foliage of the tree, I used brown watercolor on the brown water color pencils, to make a more solid looking trunk, and to have greater control over how the branches and trunk would look.

Finally, when all is said and done, I search for the post-it-note covered words of found poetry, and I remove them, to get my finished product. I'm not sure I like the whole "found poetry" thing.. at least, not this way.... I plan to continue with what I'm doing right now, but next book, I plan to find the poetry, and write it in with my own script..... I think it is better..... at least for my mind. I might change my mind, and I might not.