Eclectic Studio - Tammy Morrison-Koenig

I created this old sailor painting in my watercolor journal using a limited watercolor palette, black and white gel pens and a waterpen pen. Waterpens are plastic cartridge pens with plastic or synthetic bristles that are filled with water and work well in a travel journal. But when you are use to professional supplies these take a little bit to get use to as nothing beats beautiful sables, but sables do not transport well in my travel bag, and transporting a water supply is a pain.  Not a great painting, but I really love the play of lights against darks. 

Date night! Halloween is our most favorite time of the year. It's where we adults can dip into the tickle trunk without judgement. Lol ;) As a family we look forward to participating in our communities zombie walk and this year was no exception. If I had more time our outfits would have had a little more thought put in but with only 30 minutes and 4 people, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.   This little man rocked it this year with the gunshot through his eye ball. I created this effect with a paper cupcake liner, cut to size, and adhered it to his face using liquid latex. I built up the edges using latex, single ply tissue and a little fake skin to blend the edges. The inside was painted black and the outside was layers of bruising (yellow, green, red, blue) then the fake blood was dropped on and allowed to drip down his face. Fake blood was also splashed on his face. This gives the illusion of a very realistic freshly fed zombie.    We also grab...

We came across this old car rotting in the woods at Cottonwood Lake BC. It seemed to have run off the road, rolled, and came to rest at the bottom of the gully. Its motor was found a few feet from the vehicle and I'm sure this old car definatly has a story to tell. Feel free to use this pictures in your work, but please give credit where credit is due.

I chose to use a grisaille technique for the painting of this old man in watercolor. Grisaille is an old technique oil painters used to develop a monochromatic value study, kinda like a road map for your painting. This later served as a base for the addition of  transparent layers of color. For this painting, I chose to use a limited palette of dioxazine purple, Naples yellow,  alizarin crimson for the face with a pop or 2 of transparent orange and green gold at the end. **This is not a palette I would choose again and here's why. Naples yellow doesn't pack any punch and is opaque. This is not a great mix when you need to cover or mute the purple. Diox purple is also strong stainer, making it difficult to remove pigment. Sometimes this is ok, but didn't really help on this piece. I started this gentleman with an ink sketch that can be found in my Strathmore watercolor 400 series journal. I love the quality of paper in this journal but I wish it wou...

I have decided to post some of my reference photos free for you all to use in your work. These are some lovely wild sunflowers growing in the fields out by the ball diamonds in Fort Macleod, Alberta.  This little gopher was trying to photo bomb my other shots so I had to include him in this batch. If you choose to use any of these photos in your art  I would love it if you could link back. Thanks, I really appreciate it.

Drawing portraits on kraft toned paper provide a mid-toned base in which to build your portrait upon. One of the drawing sites I visit has a Halloween drawing event going on right now. Each day a different Halloween inspired drawing prompt is posted and you have the opportunity to use this as inspiration for your sketch. The prompt for this day was Winifred Sanderson from Hocus Pocus and skulls.  This gentleman is full of personality and life. With very little detail or line work, you are still able to give life to a 2-dimensional piece of paper. Kraft paper is a little thin so you are not able to manipulate the ink like you can on some thicker papers, so you have to be very watchful when laying down your strokes. 

A few artists are very good at blogging – I am not. I get overwhelmed by creating valuable content, how often to blog, and whether blogging can be effective for artists. When we look at creating content we need to first identify: What is the objective of an artist blog? I am sure that every artist has unique objectives, but I can almost guarantee we are all blogging to create an online presence and drive traffic to our art websites so we can land a sale. When developing content we should keep in mind that y our online art gallery is a place to showcase your art, but your artist blog makes it easy for people to find you in Google’s search. Put your time and effort into what will help you to reach your unique goals. If your goal is to sell art prints, put your effort into what will help you to sell more art prints. If your goal is to sell a watercolor painting, put your effort into strategies that will help you to sell your watercolor painting. If your goals are ...

Add caption How do you know when a sketch or painting is finished? Well, that is the age-old question that has plagued many of the even seasoned artists and the answer really lies with the artist itself. These portrait sketches are good examples of portraying age, through eyes and hairline rather than exaggerated wrinkles. Sometimes less is more.

Painting faces with darker skin tones doesn't  have to be a complicated process. Using a limited palette of just 3 colors a yellow (quin gold), a red (quin magenta) and a blue (Prussian) can create beautiful vibrant clean skin tones.  I love using these colors for darker skin tones due to their saturation and their ability to create rich darks.  After you complete your sketch, start with wetting your paper until the shine is off and then take a med. wash of yellow and touch your paper. Use the wetness of the paper to assist in letting your colors flow. Keep the edges against the white highlights clean and soft. I don't use masking fluid anymore, for the tiny highlights, I will come back in at the end of the process with a white pen and add them back in.   Let your layers dry in between as to not muddy your piece. work in small sections and build up the variations in the skin.  Add caption Don't get hung up with det...