Everyone is talking about the COVID-19 virus. Watching the news, reading up on social media and discussing at home, it’s rather depressing, Furthermore, many are going mad having to stay home, but I myself don’t mind at all! What else can one do? No way I’m defying recommendations and doing silly things like gathering in crowds and risking my life as well as others’. I’m happy to stay in and do my own thing like get creative, inspired and experimental. Keeps me distracted from the depressive atmosphere, whilst being aware of safety.
Leftover Paint
I began by doodling with some leftover paint for another piece I was also working on. This paint is the violet full body acrylic paint on the left side of the sketchbook (Strathmore Mixed Media). To fill in the other side, I also doodled with another violet paint. Both acrylic paints by Golden and Old Holland are great, such high quality stuff!
Splashes of Colours
The next step was splashing on a complementary shade like yellow fluid acrylic and spreading the colour with a brayer. Then I continued adding layers of tertiary colours like green, orange and purple with plants and flowers as well as spots of bright pink gouache.
Concluding with Cuteness
More ideas were incorporated using scraps of Japanese-language newspaper and a stamp made of a small wheel-shaped construction material I found on the ground the other day. I also used more ink in various bright colours. Then came the time to make it all cute! Bunny, teddy and kitty faces were doodled in, and for fun I drew a smiley face on the big flowers. As finishing touches I added some little flowers with a white marker and dotted in some glitter glue. All I wanted was to make the painting as bright and cheerful as possible. So here we are!
In this current climate of despair, frustration and uncertainty, I feel the need to paint something uplifting. Just looking at it now makes me happy again, especially with the bright vivid colours and the kawaii mood. I will most certaintly be doing more! For now, I’d also like to share what else I have done. Once again, I photographed various bits of the painting, isolated them and created a cute collage!
My Kawaii Quarter 