Summer, 

summer,                              summertime!


Hello lords and ladies!

It's that time again! A new creation.. this time my theme is Start of summer 
So here's what i did step by step:

STEP ONE:
I did some online searching to look at the things that people thought of when they heard the word summer, cue plenty of ice creams, deckchairs, sunglasses etc. I played about with several ideas but everntually one popped into my head: GERBERAS. I absolutely love gerberas they're my favourite flowers. 
So i drew some pencil sketches and decided on the arrangement of two gerberas in my piece.

STEP TWO:
I decided to add some writing onto the piece and drew out a tattooesque type font in pencil.











STEP THREE:
It looked a bit plain, so i added some fluid lines in pencil which i could add color to later on. I then proceeded to draw over all pencil lines with a permanent pen.


STEP FOUR: 
I use the Kuretake zig scroll and brush pens and try out the brush nib to flick out colour from the edges of the petals.
Colours used are: 
-Wheat
-pure orange
-Pure pink
-Salmon
-Summer sun.


STEP FIVE:
I used my Kuretake zig scroll and brush pens again to color the writing in, again using the brush nib. 
Colours used:
-Pure Green
-Spring Green.









STEP SIX:
I used the Scroll and brush pen in shade Pure Black with the brush nib to shade in some details and add some depth.
STEP SEVEN: 
I used the Clean color brushes in a sweeping motion to add some nice fluid patternation to the background of my picture. I used really summery colours for this:
-Yellow.
-Carmine Red
-Orange
-Light Pink
-Light Carmine
-Bright Yellow.








TA DAAAAA!!

Don't be so KOI!

HEY GUYS!!

I've created a second piece of artwork for you guys to get inspired by.

For this artwork i used:

KURETAKE GANSAI TAMBI

KURETAKE WATERBRUSH

PENCIL

BIRO PEN

KURETAKE CLEANCOLOR BRUSH IN BLACK

FIRST STEP:

My first step was to draw an outline of the picture i wanted, due to these Gansai Tambi being watercolour inks, i decided to draw myself some koi. I put my own spin on a normal koi design and mixed up the flow of the lines:

 SECOND STEP:
I drew lines across in the back of the picture, with the view of creating a piece where the background was a gorgeous grey tonal wash and the koi were bright and colourful. I also added some wavy leaves to add oomph to the background















THIRD STEP:
Draw over the lines using a pen and rub out those pencil lines!!

FOURTH STEP:
I used the Gansai Tambi to create a range of colour play in the koi, i mixed together the colour and slightly blended them out using a wet cotton bud/earbud. I used a range of fine paintbrushes for this as the details were so fine and the space was limited.


FIFTH STEP:
I used the waterbrush and both the deep navy and black watercolours to create a wash on the background, i alternated the two deep colours and stopped just short of the koi so as to offer up a nice border.

SIXTH STEP:
I used the cleancolor brush to scribble on the plates on my Koi's fins. I scribbled in an arc pattern, leaving an arch of light at the top of each scale.

SEVENTH STEP:
I used a black biro to do some careful cross hatching over the details on my koi...












AND THERE WE ARE:

I love it, it's simple but punchy. The Gansai Tambi were an absolute pleasure to work with, very highly pigmented but easily diluted. I think they'd be fantastic for a wide range of works and details. The waterbrush was fantastic too, i found it easy to spread out the watercolour to create a sweeping shade dilution.

I hope you like my piece and enjoy creating it for yourself!!

Hello!

Good afternoon/evening/morning guys and dolls!

Firstly I want to introduce myself! *curtseys* my name is Paula and I am starting out a lovely blog to share my art and creativeness with the world! I like to create in so many different ways it makes sense to make a blog and try to untangle the big ball of yarn that is my creative brain!

So today i'm going to be showing you a lil' project I've been given the privilege to work on by the lovely guys and dames over at Kuretake www.kuretakeshop.co.uk  Now if you haven't heard of Kuretake firstly, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!and secondly you must must MUST head on over there and take a gander at their range of art tools.. I can promise you wont be disappointed!

So the project topic is a very special one, to create something that sums up Kuretake's 30th anniversary *starts blowing up the balloons* I've been thinking about what to do for this project in great length and here's my design and a step by step guide of how I achieved it...

So the first thing I did was to jot down ideas of what came to mind when I thought about Kuretake.. obviously my first thought was PENS! but how did this tie in with the birthday theme? hmm... that's right... CANDLES! I linked pens to candles in my mind and I was all ready to begin. I took myself over to the Kuretake website and made a little rough sketch of the different equipment over there.. what the nibs looked like etc and I thought about how I might like to arrange that into a concept..

And I was ready to start creating..
Step 1: I used a ruler and a pencil to mark out a box in the middle of the picture where I wanted my number 30 to go. I then used the ruler again to mark the lines of where I wanted my pens to sit:

Step 2: I chose a selection of pens online that I liked and thought would look interesting in the piece. I drew these in using pencil and keeping the ruler line as a kind of centre line for the pen barrel which helped to keep it even.

Step 3: I started to use my pens on the individual pen drawings.. Now the pens im using here are all Kuretake brand pens. I have two different sets currently:

KURETAKE CLEAN COLOR REAL BRUSH (36)
These pens are filled with water based ink and have a fantastic brush nib. I love these pens, I really do. The nib is so flexible and they give a unique finish to any drawing. I love the way the brush fans and disperses the ink which allows for a nice almost cross hatched effect. The ink flows easily through the nib, I use these a lot for drawing koi or Japanese works because they are very similar to using ink pots and brushes.

KURETAKE ZIG MEMORY SYSTEM SCROLL AND BRUSH (48)
I saw these online and I knew I HAD to have the whole set straight away. The colours in this set are amazingly vibrant and I like the variations. There aren't too many browns.. or not enough pinks.. you get the point. These pens are double ended (ooooh) with one end being a fantastically pigmented brush nib and the other being a gorgeous scroll nib. Now I love the brush tip, it's fine but not micro meaning I can do detail but I can also do large areas of colour. I also love the scroll tip, although the very first time I used it I could not work out how to hold my hand to get both parts on the paper.. I am now a pro at this after experimenting. These pens have so many uses which I will expand on later..

So I went on to use the real brush pens on all the drawings aside from the writing in the middle and the two 'candle pens either side' I used a sweeping arc movement with my hand to create a rounded effect on the barrel

(Colours used are: Pale pink, bright yellow and orange)

(colours used are: Black, blue and yellow)

(colours used are: mustard and black)

(colours used are: mustard and black)

(colours used are: cobalt blue and black)

it was starting to take shape....


I then used the scroll and brush pens on the 'candle' pens either side and used the scroll nib to write the '30' Now another thing I like about these pens are the fact that you don't have to take off both caps to see which end is which because it's labelled! HURRAH It's a small thing, but another thing that makes these pens winners in my book.










Step 4: So it was really coming along now, but it seemed a bit plain! This is where the multi-use of the scroll and brush pens REALLY comes into play. I switched to brush nib, set the very tip down and laid the brush end flat, this allowed me to create a mix of a flower and a firework.. PERFECT! I layered these petal like prints up and then experimented further with this technique but pulling the brush nib back on the paper and then pushing it down.. I really liked this effect.








Step 5: I used the scroll nib on the pens to create some wavy art deco-esque lines which helped the picture to stand out.










And there it was! my piece was finished.. I tried to keep it simple but snazzy and I think It worked.

I hope you've found this tutorial helpful and definitely get yourselves over to www.kuretakeshop.co.uk


Thankyou for reading :)