Mimi's Windows

Hello ..! :D

I’m Minerva aka Mimi, your guest blogger for the day! :)) On other days I’m a world travelling, coffee chugging tradigital artist and art journaler. I would love to say I religiously document my artistic escapades on my blog but that would be exaggerating. A lot. So I won’t say that. But come visit me anyway won’t you? :))

I was so blown away to have been asked by Maria to write a guest blog about the latest page I made in DLP/Journal51, I actually didn't think she was serious! So thank you Maria..! I’m gonna get to it before you change your mind haha :))

So without any more rambling here is my page for the prompt “Don’t stop till you get enough” & “Windows”. This year I’m combining the prompts for DLP and Journal52 and its combo’s like this that make you question your judgment. Haha :))

My initial idea was to do a semi-realistic sketch of a girl looking out the window. So I started with a sketch. I was not feeling the realistic way so I stylized her till I felt better about it.

Then I wanted to do my regular acrylic painting but I stumbled across this uber awesome video on youtube by artist Carrie Hilgert and that totally gave me the direction to play.

So I started shading the face with watercolors. I’ve never used watercolors for portraits so this was unknown territory. I decided it would be easier to keep it very stylized and loose so I didn’t do any blending at all.

Next I took a big flat brush loaded with watercolor and water and just splatted it where the hair would be and let the excess drip. I did the drips going both horizontally and vertically.

Once the page was dry I came in with my platinum carbon pen and outlined all the little pools of colors & filled them in with doodles. This was a very intuitive process so I didn’t control it at all. I just reflected back upon all the windows I’ve ever looked out of and the shapes I’ve seen and just added them wherever I felt like.

As the final step I took a white gelly roll pen and added in white highlights to make the doodles pop.
And that’s it! :)) Hope you enjoyed my little post and feel inspired to go play in your own journals! :)) Please let me know if you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer!

Maria, thanks again for having me! See you guys around soon!
{{xx}}

-Minerva