watercolour pencils – 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.

The Fantasy Art Collection

Here you will find all of my Fantasy Art and links to where you can buy prints, originals and merchandise! I will be constantly adding each of my collection so please keep visiting to check out my latest pieces!!!

You can find Original pieces in my Etsy store https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ChrissyTurleyArtist for prints and all other merchandise go to my redbubble site https://www.redbubble.com/people/chrissyturley

The first fairies I painted! Wattle and rose!

Another fairy. This one looks particularly awesome on a phone case! You can find it here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/chrissyturley

My dragon is next. This little guy looks amazing on a shirt!

And lastly my house by the river.

So that is my fantasy collection of art work. Thank you for reading and supporting my art works!

My Redbubble store is here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/chrissyturley

My Etsy Store is here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ChrissyTurleyArtist

Cheers

Chrissy

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

Day 14 – 30 Days of Art

As you can see, I am still having trouble with faces! Argh! It’s driving me mad! I think it might be time to do a little more research into them! You-tube tonight it is!

Fairies again! I love fairy art. Fantasy art is something that I would like to become better at. I love all those kinds of things. I love reading about fairies and vampires and all things magical. The worlds of Harry Potter and the likes really make me happy and get my imagination started!

I found this writing in google and I absolutely love it! I love getting creative with writing.

Remember, if you would like to see any of the pieces I have available for sale you can visit my etsy store https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ChrissyTurleyArtist

You can also follow me on instagram www.instagram.com/chrissyturley30 and now you can like me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/chrissyturleyartist

Cheers

Chrissy xxx

Day 9 – 30 Days of Art

So today I was a little over the place. I couldn’t nail down a theme so I just did a little of everything. A fairy, because I love fairies. Who doesn’t love a pretty fairy? I used water colours to do the wings. It took me a long time to do the face……. my weakest skill… or lack of! My beautiful son, sketched with a 2b pencil. I think the drawing is ok, lots to work on but does actually look a bit like him which is a bonus!

And the northern lights landscape also done in watercolour pencils. They didn’t quite do what I had in my head but I’m starting to get used to using the watercolour pencils. I would love to go and see the northern lights, it’s on my really large list of things and places I want to see and do!

Thanks for reading,

Chrissy xxx

Day 7 – 30 Days of Art

Some more sketches of some household ‘things’. We have my window in our front window, and an imaginary fireplace (something close to what I would love when we move). The lighthouse is something that I’ve painted before (below) but I wanted it to be a little different. So I’ve done it in watercolour pencil and put a black ball point pen design in the shape of a heart around it. I love harsh lines against something as soft as watercolour.

Train (the band) is what I’m listening to right now and there are a few songs that really get me. Brick by Brick, Marry Me, and Words. They just speak to my present mood and I love singing at the of my lungs in the car when no one can hear!

Check this painting out and many more in my etsy shop! https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ChrissyTurleyArtist and follow me on instagram at www.instagram.com/chrissyturley30.

My new jar took about 5 hours to stick on all those beads and the string. It was totally worth it, my brushes have the perfect pretty home!

Cheers,

Chrissy xxx

P.S I love a good storm! The colour of the sky, the clouds and the sun being chased back.