Tag: watercolor painting

Art Travel Diary – New York

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Last summer, my family and I headed to NYC, third time for me, first time for my daughter. We had so much fun showing her the Statue of Liberty, walking on the High Line, watching a basketball game at Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn between The NY Liberties and Connecticut Wise (NY lost but Susan Sarandon was there!), watching Wicked on Broadway, and enjoyed a full day at Coney Island.

As for me, I totally enjoyed the food, the shopping, and the artistic and painting opportunities. Speaking of which, I signed up for a sketching session with a small group at the Grand Central Terminal. It was quite fun, but also tiring having to stand up for hours.

On the way there, we flew Air France, as usual and had a blast on the Business Class cabin watching Dune and enjoying the meal, the wine, the champagne, the reclining seat and the huge leg room. The service was always very good.

We stayed at SIXTY LES, our favorite hotel in NYC and we got the nicest view of the Manhattan Skyline on the corner suite of the 17th floor. It was so nice to see this view first thing in the morning and last thing at night, especially when the Empire State Building twinkles every hour after dusk, like the Eiffel Tower. I don’t remember seeing this before in my previous visits.

Anyway, I had some nice painting opportunities from the view in our bedroom, and also did some shopping at Blick Art Materials in Soho. I was so happy to find a big discount on Daniel Smith and Holbein watercolor pigments, and that the watercolor paper I bought in SFO and very much liked was available there! Oh, and we also went to the MET. 🙂

More of the fun on my Youtube video:

Next time, I’ll be writing about my Yoga and Watercolor Art Retreat in Lanzarote, Canary Islands!

Thanks for dropping by! Keep shining! 🙂

Drawing Contest (Concours de dessin) by Art Tea Shop Toulouse

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I was surprised and very flattered to be contacted by Art Tea Shop Toulouse for their Drawing Contest. They asked if they could use the photo I took of my watercolor artwork for their Drawing Contest’s flyers.

J’ai été surprise et très flattée d’être contactée par Art Tea Shop Toulouse pour leur concours de dessin. Ils m’ont demandé s’ils pouvaient utiliser pour les flyers de leur concours de dessin la photo de mon aquarelle que j’ai prise.

My original artwork and photo

If you are interested to join, do visit their instagram page for details.

Si vous êtes interessés, consultez leur instagram pour plus de détails.

This artwork was totally not my best but I guess I captured the mood really well. My composition was not bad at all. And overall, everything in the photo looks quite nice! 🙂

Cette peinture n’est pas du tout ma meilleure, mais je crois que j’ai bien saisi l’ambiance. Ma composition n’était pas mauvaise du tout. Et dans l’ensemble, tout ce qui est sur la photo est très joli 🙂

By the way, they also have a nice restaurant / tea shop, where we had one of our monthly watercolor sessions two years ago.

À propos, ils ont aussi un joli restaurant/salon de thé, où on a fait l’une de nos sessions mensuelles de l’aquarelle l y a deux ans.

Art Tea Shop in Toulouse

If you live around Toulouse, do drop by the Art Tea Shop. It’s a really nice brasserie and tea shop with warm, welcoming staff. The place is very cozy and quite original, they have good food and drinks, and they sell artworks from local artists, too. We totally had a good time there. I should go back one of these days. 🙂

Si vous habitez dans la région de Toulouse, ne manquez pas de vous rendre à l’Art Tea Shop. Il s’agit d’une brasserie et d’un salon de thé très sympathiques avec un personnel chaleureux et accueillant. L’endroit est très confortable et assez original, ils ont de la bonne nourriture et des boissons, et ils vendent des œuvres d’art d’artistes locaux, aussi. On a passé un très bon moment là-bas. Je devrais y retourner un de ces jours. 🙂

Watercolor Painting of Santorini

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Finally, after almost two years, I managed to travel outside of France once again. My family and I stayed in the lovely island of Santorini in Greece for a week during the school holiday. We stayed in this beautiful apartment in Pyrgos, a quiet area in the middle of the island, away from the bustle of the touristy areas of Oia and Fira.

We had a lovely view of the sea, some of the islands, and the mountains from the balcony of our Airbnb apartment. The view, and the Bougainvillea flowers at the entrance of the apartment inspired me to paint plein air on the balcony, one day, when I had the occasion to take a break from our usual walks.

I had so much fun, and felt so relaxed doing this watercolor painting of a scenery in Santorini. It was actually inspired by this picture of myself standing under the lush and lovely Bougainvillea of our Airbnb apartment. I just edited it a bit to make it look more interesting in the painting.

Me and my bougainvillea tree

Hope you are all having a fun week. Thanks for dropping by! Cheers!

Watercolor Painting of My Birthday Bouquet

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The hubs and the daughter surprised me with an armful of flowers last weekend. It was so gorgeous, I was inspired to paint it.

It was not only gorgeous, it smelled heavenly as well. For the simple, loose floral watercolor demo, I just used my Schmincke Horadam watercolor palette, Fabriano cold-pressed watercolor paper (300 gsm) and my trusty Da Vinci Casaneo travel brush, size 8. I had so much fun doing this. And also, had some nice thoughts to share while I was at it.

Like I always say, watercolor painting is very relaxing and therapeutic. Even if you do not know how to paint, just watching a video on watercolor painting is enough relaxation already. But why not give it a try? There’s nothing to lose. 🙂

Hope you’re having a fun weekend.

Thanks for dropping by! 🙂

Watercolor Painting Demo – Okra Plant

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This morning, I was just looking at my Okra plants, and I was filled with so much joy when I saw one of my plants with more than one flower for the first time. Just when I thought I had already harvested the last Okra fruit from all my plants! 🙂

I never really liked Okra as a kid, even as an adult, to be honest. But I fell in-love with the plant, and most especially the flowers! I didn’t know Okra flowers were so beautiful. They have a bit of resemblance with Hibiscus flowers, which of course, I later found out, was due to the fact that they are from the same plant family.

So, here is a video of my Watecolor painting demo of my Okra plant. I used Schmincke Horadam watercolor pigments for this painting, and my Lamali Indigo sketchbook. And of course, my Silver Brush Black Velvet brushes.

I have enjoyed doing this loose watercolor painting so much. The flower could’ve been better but I’m still quite happy with the end result. Also, it’s always such a therapeutic and relaxing experience to paint with watercolor.

If you enjoyed watching this video, please remember to hit the like and subscribe button.

Thanks for dropping by and have a fun weekend! 🙂

Watercolor Painting Tutorial Beach Scene

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Hello! If you’re like me, who couldn’t wait for summer and is terribly missing the beach, here’s an inspiring and relaxing loose watercolor painting tutorial of a beach scene (a photo I took) in Coron, Palawan, Philippines from 2010.

For this watercolor tutorial / painting demo, I used M. Graham watercolors, the set of five pigments. I like painting with a limited color palette, it keeps everything harmonious, uncluttered and pleasing to the eyes. But don’t be fooled by the term, “limited”. It doesn’t mean that you are using just five colors. If you’re interested on how you can get more out of these five colors by mixing them, you can watch another video that I’ve created just for that.

Watercolor painting is very relaxing and therapeutic. Even if you do not know how to paint, just watching a watercolor painting in process coupled with some chill music, for me, is relaxing enough.

Thanks for watching and please don’t forget to like my videos and hit the subscribe button. Have a great week! 🙂

Experimenting With Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground

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I’ve always wanted to try painting with watercolor on canvas. I tried to research on how to do this, and apparently, you just need to first apply some watercolor ground on the surface.

And so, here’s a video where I have tried using watercolor ground on wood, paper and canvas…

Prior to this, I have tried the Schmincke watercolor ground, the transparent one. I didn’t really like it so much on the wood surface where I have tried it on. But maybe I will try it again another time on canvas.

So far, though, I was quite satisfied with the outcome of my watercolor painting on the canvas where I have used Daniel Smith’s watercolor ground (Titanium white). The only thing I’m not so crazy about is that the watercolor paint looks slightly more opaque than usual due to the titanium white watercolor ground in the background. It looks less luminous than when applied directly on paper.

I do hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please do give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel if you like this sort of stuff. 🙂