Art Journal – Chrissy Turley Artist

One year Anniversary – where on earth has the time gone?u

I have now been an Artist for just over a year. I am shocked at how far I’ve come in one short year. I’ve made so much progress and I’ve been able to address some of my confidence issues.

Above is one of my very first sketches……. 🙈🙈

As an artist you are forever being judged. So many people think you don’t actually “work” and that it must be easy to throw some paint on a canvas. There will always be someone sniggering behind your back, sometimes even to your face. But you know what the best thing I’ve learnt this year is? Is not to care or listen to the armchair critics. The quicker you learn to ignore the ‘know-it-alls’ the better off you are going to be.

Above is a short video a start of a puffin sketch. It turned out really nice. It just shows a little bit of effort every day over time is totally worth it.

I have enjoyed so much about the last year. I’ve loved that many people love my art and that lots of my pieces (prints and originals) are making lots of people happy. I’ve loved learning new skills and learning how to perfect certain techniques. I’ve even enjoyed finding myself lost and not sure how to move a piece forward. I have also enjoyed being able to put those pieces down, move to something new and then coming back to the old piece and knowing exactly where to go.

Learning that I don’t have to force myself to be creative and enjoying the fact that some of my better pieces were created when I threw the rule book out the window.

I learnt to TRUST myself. Trust that I am actually good at this. It’s wonderful that after many years, several different jobs and career choices that I have finally found something I love. And yet I still have SO much farther to go. The road may seem never ending, but holy moly I am going to enjoy strolling off down the winding dirt path with the fairies.

Keep up with my progress and all my new pieces for this next year by following me on Instagram and Facebook. If you would like to see what original pieces and prints I have on sale at the moment check out my Etsy Store or my Redbubble Site.

My favourite Art tools

This week the topic is my favourite tools! Learn about what paint brushes, pencils, markers, water colour pencils and ball point pens I love and why!

Paint Brushes

It’s really hard to find an ethical paint brush when you’re vegetarian. I don’t use any that are made from animal hair. This is something that is really important to me! I only use synthetic brushes. It’s hard to get a ‘rough’ look to your paint with synthetic brushes. So what I do is mess a couple up by scrubbing them hard into the canvas board or tissue paper. It messes the bristles up and you can get a much more natural effect for things like trees.

Spectrum Noir Markers

Alcohol Markers are becoming far more popular. They give a great deal of colour saturation with very little effort. They are especially good for fantasy art and animae drawings. Blending can be really difficult when you’re starting out with them. Paper plays an important role with alcohol Markers.

Graphite

This is the sketching set I’m using at the moment. They are fairly good, but next time I’ll be purchasing something that’s a little better quality. I find there isn’t a lot of difference between the hard leads and the softer pencils. This sometimes can make shading very difficult.

Watercolour Pencils

The below picture is of a print drawn in watercolour pencils. You can lay a lot of colour down to make things very rich and vibrant, or use a very light pressure and just add a wash of colour. The background in my dragon picture has a light blue wash.

Ball Point Pens or Line Markers

I like to outline water colour pencil and graphite pencil sketches with these on occasion. I also like to sketch little designs with them. They come in handy to create really dark lines and the different sizes of the line markers are perfect for shading I pen.

Follow me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/chrissyturley30 or like my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/chrissyturleyartist to stay up to date with all my current works or art!

Cheers

Chrissy xxx

Work created this week 25/6 – 01/07

This week I started with the blog post about how I created the graphite drawing of The Lion. This first lion sketch allowed me to roll on to my next lion watercolour piece. Which I named Marcus’ Lion. It was made for my son who is so quiet but ever so sweet. To check out The Lion click here and to have a look at Marcus’ Lion follow this link https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/524322682/marcus-lion.

I also started and finished an Acrylic painting of some Calla Lillies. I love calla lillies and I had this idea in my mind for a long time. It felt fantastic to start it. Keep an eye out for how I created that Lilly painting from concept to reality in the next couple of weeks.

I finished off a family Portrait and posted it off to its new home. This portrait took me a really long time and it’s my very first family Portrait for someone else. A step by step guide to how I created this piece will be available shortly, so keep an eye out for it. I’ve been super busy this week with finishing off all of my current projects.

I decided to make teachers gifts, as opposed to buying them. My 2 kids have 8 between them! So I started by making the gift tags that will go on a framed print of mine. I hope they enjoy their gifts!!!

And lastly this week I created a graphite sketch of a red squirrel. I love squirrels, they are one of my favourite animals.

To check out my squirrel, and all my other pieces in full view, get to my etsy and redbubble stores for Originals, prints and other merchandise.

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ChrissyTurleyArtist

Redbubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/chrissyturley

Join me on my Facebook and Instagram pages to keep up to date with all my art work.

Cheers

Chrissy xxx

Paper or Canvas – that is the question!

I often get asked is Canvas or Paper better to paint/draw on. The answer is simple…….. it depends on what you want to draw or paint! There are so many options and there are so many things you need to consider. I’m going to show you what I use and how I use it to help you make a good decision for yourself.

Sketching/Drawing

For practice drawing and sketching you want to have a smooth paper. So a hot pressed paper that isn’t too thick. Anything up to 120gsm is pretty good. The thickness of the paper will still give you a quality feel to your sketch and the hot press will give you a smooth finish. The smoother the paper, the cleaner your lines will be which will give you a more realistic look.

My current art journal is less than 100gsm and is not suitable for anything other than sketching. Below is a picture of an Orca that I drew in my journal. If you try to use other medias (paint of watercolour) on this type of paper it will wrinkle and curl. It damages the paper and if you do that, there’s no saving it.

Mixed Media Paper 250 gsm +

The below sketch is a graphite on 250gsm mixed media paper. This paper is meant to handle Acrylic paint well, but water colour is a bit of a stretch. I love it to print my prints on to beacause it has a bit of texture just like a canvas and it gives the print a really good quality look and feel.

The above picture is a print of my original Acrylic painting printed on to 250gsm paper.

Cold Pressed Cotton Paper

A cold press paper is rough, it has what is called ‘tooth’. It is ideal if you like that bumpy, textured feel and look to your painting. I personally don’t like to draw on this type of paper. I love to paint on it! I use a 300gsm cold press cotton paper with my acrylics. You get a matte finish with the textured finish of a canvas. The cotton paper is actually made for water colour paint because it can handle the wet application without creasing and folding. I don’t have watercolours so I use my acrylic on it and it performs beautifully.

Both Rose and Wattle have been painted on this cold press cotton paper. As you can see, it performs wonderfully!

Stretched Canvas

There are several types of canvas you can get. The main types are stretched canvas, canvas board and canvas paper. Of these three I haven’t used the canvas paper but it is on my rather long list of things to try. I prefer to use a stretched canvas. I like the bounce back it gives you. Both types of canvas have a tooth (bumpy texture) that I love! The stretched canvas you don’t frame but hang as is.

Above is an acrylic Painting is on a stretched canvas of Saundersfoot Beach. This is my favourite material to paint on.

Canvas Board

For my original painting of my Light house I did it on a canvas board. As you can see from the below picture that it performs much like a stretched canvas. It has a tooth, although not as deep. It is an easy and cheaper way to start painting. They come in all sorts of sizes and packs. You can frame them easily too.

To see all of my work that is for sale, go to me etsy store. https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ChrissyTurleyArtist

If you have any questions message me or follow me on instagram www.instagram.com/chrissyturley30 and find me on Facebook www.facebook.com/chrissyturleyartist where I will have live drawing and painting demos every week. I also have 2 competitions currently running on both pages.

I hope you liked my tips for how to choose the right material to paint or draw on. Come back next week for more!

Cheers

Chrissy xxxx

Day 29 and 30 – 30 Days of Art

Well I’ve finally finished, nearly 30 days of non stop drawing or painting! The final piece in my this Challenge is a portrait of my family. My world. My life. The reason I am who I am.

When I started 30+ days ago, the extent of my drawing abilities was not great.

A drawing I did a few weeks prior to starting this challenge. I am so utterly proud of how far my graphite drawings have come. I’m so happy with what I’ve achieved. Before this art journal challenge I would never have called myself an Artist. Now I do. I know I have a skill and talent that I can improve on, and how far I’ve come in just 30 short days is just amazing.

It should prove to all of you, that if you put your mind to it, you can do anything!

If you would like to view my current work for sale, please go to my Etsy store. https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ChrissyTurleyArtist

I have 2 competitions running on my Facebook and Instagram pages so go check those out as well!

Cheers and thank you for watching me grow over the last 30 days!

Chrissy xxx

Day 27 and 28 – 30 Days of Art.

Here is my painting of the Monmouthshire/Brecon canal near cwmbran, Wales. This is the first step of my painting process. I’ve sketched out roughly where everything is going to be and I started with the background first. It’s much easier to work from the background to the foreground when painting. You can create a lot of depth and distance by getting this technique right.

Next is a small video of me doing some of the trees. If you watch closely, I’m using a very light pressure on the paint brush and just adding a few dark leaves to form the shape of he tree.

And here is more of the water done before the last push to completing this Acrylic painting on stretched canvas.

Prints of this painting are available in my etsy store https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ChrissyTurleyArtist.

I am currently running 2 competitions on my Instagram and Facebook pages so go check those out and you could your choice of free prints! I hope you are enjoying my painting and sketches develop. If you would like me to attempt anything new, please message or comment! I’ll try my best with anything.

Cheers

Chrissy xxx

Day 26 – 30 Days of Art

We have more lip practice today. I’m really proud of how far I’ve come. No matter how far I still have to go. I am really loving Graphite. It gets a little messy but I love it. For the next 4 days of my 30 Day Art Challenge I will be producing 2 pieces. One Acrylic Landscape of Stretched Canvas and one Family Graphite Portrait. I’m really excited to see how they come out.

If you would like to see all of my the pieces that I have created, go to my etsy shop – https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ChrissyTurleyArtist

I have 2 competitions running in my Facebook and Instagram pages. Go and check them out for your chance to win a free print!

https://www.facebook.com/chrissyturleyartist

https://www.instagram.com/chrissyturley30

Cheers,

Chrissy