Unpredictable

Unpredictable?  Could it be the weather or my mood?  Doodled what I felt like doodling with some permanent black ink.  Hearts, flowers, stars, animals and some squiggly bits.  This time it seemed to be “crowded” like my state of mind.  Trying to fill in spaces as much as possible.

Filled the shapes in with colourful thoughts in water-soluble felt pens and spread the ink out with a wet brush.  Background became blue.  The sky.  Or could be the sea.  Perhaps I was still reminiscing about our Hokkaido trip.  Or noticing the clear blue skies we are getting these days.  I really love the assortment of colours the pens came in.  Ordered them from Japan a while ago.

I then covered the area with white gesso and regretted it a bit because it toned down and whitened out the vivid colours, making it too pastel.  I mean look at the difference in colours in the photos above and below!  Making it a point to get some clear gesso and wondering what difference that would make.

But not to worry, I continued on and enhanced the outlines of the shapes with black acrylic paint and added some details like eyes.  Further embellished the shapes with some white ink and nib.

In one of the books I am reading, I got inspired by an artist adding some black squares on the shapes and outlining the original outline in white.  But I wanted to keep the “roundness” of the images so drew a group of small black clouds in the middle of the painting instead.  I thought it so cool how the artist suggested tracing in white the original outlines of the blackened shapes.  She went further by adding more layers in her work but I decided to stop right there.

I didn’t want to hide the original cute shapes by painting over them.  And I didn’t want to lose the kawaii-ness of the whole picture.  Just wanted to show the emergence of the black clouds interfering with the brightness.  Could it be black clouds hanging over my thoughts?  Or me getting a bit edgy with the unusually hot muggy weather in Amsterdam?  Or that the weather forecast keeps telling us of expected storms and heavy rainfall amid the bright flowers and high spirits?