The Magnolias are Back!

Yippeee, our beautiful pink magnolias have miraculously been resurrected! About a month ago, I was lamenting over them having to disappear when we had that unusually snowy spell in late-March. We thought they were gone for this year but recently, the buds have began popping up again and the pretty pink petals blooming with revived energy! And here is Little One all excited to discover that. So excited that she even made a cute floral hairband with the Magnolias aand all dressed up in matching colors. How kawaii is that!

The Start

For this piece, I merely used a two-page spread of my Strathmore’s sketchbook. The ground I made a golden yellow with Golden Fluid Acrylic in Nickel Azo Yellow and Indian Yellow Hue to symbolize positive energy from the sun. Then with the dropper tip of some Emerald Green acrylic ink, I drew in some branches. The magnolia petals were then doodled with some iridescent India Ink (Dr, Ph Martin’s Bombay Ink). Finally, Little One is added! She’s initially painted in with some of Derwent’s Inktense. As you can see, I enjoy playing around with various mediums!

Working on Little One

And now Little One is jumping! Of course she is. She’s so elated to see her beautiful magnolias growing again! Her jumpsuit was painted in the same iridescent pink as the magnolias. Seeing that more could be added, I decided to decorate her more and introduced a magnolia headband. How pretty is that!

Finishing Touches

To fill in some empty spaces, the sun was added in the corner with the same yellow colors as the ground, and part of the sky was painted with some blue Ecoline ink for that transparent look. I also doodled some leaves on the ground. Glitter pen and glue were then used for Little One’s smiling eyes. To introduce some texture, I spread some glitters and stars with Ranger’s Stickles Gel on the sun and bottom right corner of page. Finally I dotted in a bit of Holbein’s Acryla gouache on the flowers and dress for added enhancement. And now!

A simple but cute painting on sketchbook! Like most art journaling, the aim is to express feelings and emotions as well as to play around with various mediums and methods to develop creativity. I throughly enjoyed this session and being able to reflect how happy I am about the resurrection of the magnolias. And of course using this opportunity to integrate it with something cute like Little One makes me especially happy!