Found a small set with five Roman Szmal Aquarius (and a temporary bonus pan I could not resist). Been curious of Roman Szmal paints for a while and it was reasonably priced. Whit the small, limited pallet – really nice.
Photo from a walk in Haverdal, Halland, Sweden in the summer of 2024.
First test was maybe not the most efficient test of granulation it was supposed to be, but definitely a leap out of my comfort zone with a looser more “classic” watercolor style.
The picture is from Jörlanda, Bohuslän, Sweden a few (read December 2017 😉 ) years ago during a walk with friends. The cat? – who knows, he/she just liked walking with us I guess…
Tundra and Shire sets. On the side Glacier Turquoise and Volcano Violet.
Because I had a big birthday coming up and got myself a gift… something I would normally not buy, just for me. I ended up choosing A. Gallo Colors, handmade honey based watercolors from Assisi, Italy. Beautiful colors, and slightly different to paint with than my normal watercolors…
Anyway, birthday passed fairly quiet. The rose hips was the first, couple of weeks later the stones. Beautiful colors – not as easy to layer, they lift easily. I’ll have to adapt.
The picture and swatch card above show the Naturale 24 set and below the swatches a box of colors I picked just because they were pretty. They all look like candy though – eye candy.
I also got two of the Schmincke Horadam super granulating sets. See this post: Schmincke Horadam.
A late summer evening – still light as summer evenings are, I went for a walk. Close by home I made a few photos of pebbles around a tree. Nice for painting I thought… Some beautiful colors and nice shapes.
Well, I pass there most days… not until the paintings were done I noticed the little signs that said… Hundtoalett (dog toilet).
Yep. I painted a toilet. But I still like the result 🙂
And I had the best long vacation day in the sunny garden, painting and Tour de France…
Here is what I couldn’t show. Or at least the start, it’s not finished yet. But now for once, I’m not the one drawing, I’ve handed over the rest of the work to Felicia. It’s a bit too difficult to draw on my own back.
It actually started with lots of sketches, but this story starts here, whit this watercolor painting and a visit to a tattoo shop called Buzzstop28.
Oh, no thanks, not no gears, way too fussy, said the guy I first spoke to at Buzzstop28. He even said that gears had been the worst day of his working life. It’s a good thing to say no when you really don’t want to do it , it will never turn out very well when forced… That is, at least, my experience from my years working as an illustrator, not be the same profession, but close enough.
He referred me to his colleague Felicia who wasn’t there at the time. So I left a copy of the painting and my phone number. A couple of days later it was decided, Felicia would be happy to make gears bur she wanted to redo the text. This is what I got back as the first suggestion:
Very nice, but I thought the text was a bit too big, and a bit too tattoo-styled for my old gears. I returned it with smaller text and a few other small things and we agreed to tis:
After almost 4.5 hours on my belly, my back now looks like this:
Nice lines… It was a bit of a challenge for me, my first tattoo and being scared of needles. Felicia did it brilliantly. And it didn’t hurt much either… Not until the end, anyway. In about three weeks there will be more heavier lines and color. Looking forward to it!
Ps. The text means “Nothing is impossible” and that it says 2012… it is no mistake. Last year, 2012, everything seemed possible!
Maybe I should have some Art Nouveau/Jugend inspired pictures in the living room. Will be lots of color, but not the color scheme in my little test version above.
