Day 29, Entry 1: Never ever in my days of living would I have ever imagined living my life from the four walls of my home. End of entry.
Yes, I had to add a little dramatization to my opening statement. Nevertheless with the recent pandemic, one can agree that it has affected the livelihood of many. The usual buzz, the traffic congestion… everything has come to a standstill in an effort to flatten the curve of surging infections.
There have been its good and bad throughout the period thus far – one of the good would be enhancing my watercolour skills using this teaching site called Domestika! Now this is definitely a site I would recommend during this “stay-at-home” period. Its basically tailor-made for those who are already in the field of arts, crafts and design and would like to improve their skills in other areas; and is perfectly suited for those who have never painted a stroke till today. The saying “I can’t paint to save my life.” at the back of your mind will immediately dissipate with the courses they have to offer here.
As for me, I signed up for three courses but I will only be sharing on one of the courses in this entry. I will share on how it has made me improve gradually in a short period of time.
Meet Ana Victoria Calderon, the facilitator for this course. Ana is a water-colourist from Mexico and shares her experience in this course. In brief, it is strategically broken down making it easy for the participant to digest the basic understanding before diving into the process. Yes process! A basic understanding in design process is a core to any final outcome of an artwork!
She kick-starts your interest by sharing her where she gains her inspirations from and moves on into showcasing some of her accomplished works that range from packaging delights to admirable illustrated books.
As she eases on, she gives a short but very straightforward demonstrative tutorial on several watercolour techniques. Being a short course, she gives an encouragement to try out and share our personal experiences on following what she had done.
Nevertheless for me, this was a fruitful experience as it made me overcome an age long fear of controlling watercolour on paper. Truth be told, it was my kryptonite but the ease-ins from Ana’s course on Domestika made me improve in a short matter of time. What made it further interesting was taking my watercolour a step further and turning it into greater masterpieces with the aid of computer software such like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
This inspired me to re-open an old and abandoned account from years ago on Society6. A place where I was able to fabricate my designs onto a variety of objects for personal and home living use. Does it stop there? Unfortunately for me, it never stops as I know in my own-self that I am definitely going to grow it further for as long as I am living, breathing and walking upon this earth.
So before I take my leave, I would like to know what have you been upto throughout this period. If you have not indulged in something new, how about signing on to something that would spark your interest on Domestika?
Share your stories in the comments below. I’d like to hear from you too!
#stayathome #domestikacourses #anavictoriacalderon #watercolourworkshop #colourdiary #designdotmuses #beamusemy
Let’s explore more digitized watercolour.
First and foremost before I continue onward, I wish all my readers a joyous and prosperous 2020 ahead.
So this was a little home adventure with my own frame that was made out of plywood, bolts and nuts.
In total, it took me a solid one and half to complete the entire scarf. So once I sketched the design onto the scarf and propped it onto the frame, I started to wax resist the design.
The purpose of the wax is to prevent the colours from merging and losing the design. There are various ways to doing this. There is also another type of resist that is used is called gutta. This is mainly used for silk painting. Not something I will explore anytime soon. As for the problems faced with using wax. You will have to very cautious as to not allow the wax to over boil. This allows the mixture of paraffin and resin to stay merged and create thicker lines… 
More designs to be shared pretty soon.
So in this class I discovered the art of glazing. I was taught how to firstly prep the piece by smoothing the surface and later sponging it to make sure the piece doesn’t have dust that would prevent the glaze from sticking to the surface. Then came to prepping the glazing.
And once it had dried into the gas oven it goes for an over the night firing with the rest of the works. The final works were beyond exquisite!
Truth be told, I was so afraid that my clock tower was not going to make it through. But seeing that it survived the first firing makes me even happier. Now I truly need to plan the colour scheme for it and begin to make some place at home for displaying.
The hardest part was controlling the coiling as the try to manage the shape requires not only patience but a firm and unshaken hand. The cup did not turn out the way I hoped but it will do for now.
I had a little more time spared on the clock so I decided to experiment a little more with the slip. I dropped a blob and using a stick, drag it a little into a fishie!
So another creation was made a forest themed vase. But this was only the beginning that inspired my personal project. A ceramic clock tower with pendulum.
So getting into business, Class 1 was more of an introduction to tools and workspace. Personally, there is a sense of serenity that is so perfect and sets you in the mood of working. My teacher was this young soul named Chloe. She was so soft-spoken to my usually noisy self. At this point, I remembered my random encounter with a Priest who looked me straight in the eye and told me that I need to learn to spend time in quietness. This made me realise that I was in the right place to start my new journey in life.
More adventure to follow suit as I journey with the rest of my classes!
Thank you all for your support so far.
The walk through is always an amazement as the collection of works go way back in time and come from all over the place. As for the students, it was a wider range of items that amazed them. Added to that, the guide who accompanied them really gave them an insight into the architectural terms and elements. One thing that truly amazed them was also how the Arabs were fantastic matematician and applied their calculations not only into to tradings and travels but to their designs, creating beautiful ornate geometric patterned designs.
Added to that, were the fashion collections from all over the regions such like Persia, India, China and Africa. Here are some of the pictures for your viewing.
Beamuse Designs 