Creative Explorations are themed around a prompt that you can explore in your own art practice over the coming weeks. Prompts are sent out on the first Friday of every month.
I’m sitting on the balcony, a cup of coffee balanced on the edge of my knees. The tree in front of my house is a bright green; the dust and grime washed off by the rain. Little droplets of water sparkle on the edges of the leaves, catching the rays of the morning sun and refracting into tiny, jewel-like sparkles. A rich petrichor fills the warm, humid air, as I sip on my coffee and take in the rain-washed trees and buildings around me.
What would it look like, to capture a bit of this petrichor…this feeling of monsoon…in my sketchbook? Let’s explore!
Color palette: Use the colors of this season to create a color palette for your art explorations this month. Consider what colors feel like monsoon to you. Maybe you’d like a more monochromatic palette, or perhaps jewel hued colors? For me, it’s bright greens, smoky blues and greys, and earthy browns. Not my favored palette, but that’s the challenge for me and for you — to use your chosen color palette in at least one piece this month!
Drip paint: Imagine the rain falling across the windscreen of your car…the water at it drops and pools down your windscreen, until the wipers clear it away. One way to capture that is by dripping and dropping paint on your sketchbook. Use acrylic inks or watered down fluid acrylics and have some fun with paint drips.
Squeegee: The windscreen wipers bring squeegees to mind. {You can use a credit card or scraper too.} What if you swiped a squeegee across the paint drips from the previous step? Or run a contoured catalyst wedge through it. What kinds of cool designs and patterns can you come up with?
Smeared sketches: Another way to get that monsoon feeling into your sketchbook is to purposely drop some water on a fountain pen sketch. Let the ink bleed in unexpected ways and see what happens.
Inky meditations: Try wetting your paper and dropping inks into it. See how the ink spreads and blooms. Experiment with different kinds of ink to see how they react with the water. Once dry, turn those inky blooms into sketches. See this and this for some inspiration.
Playful watercolors: If there’s one supply that feels like monsoon to me, it’s watercolors. Why not experiment with watercolor abstracts, letting the colors pool together and do their watercolory magic? Need some inspiration? See this and this.
I look forward to seeing your take on this prompt! You can email your finished pieces to me on shinjinim@substack.com or share them on Notes if you use the Substack app. If you share on Instagram, tag me @moderngypsy.in
Like this prompt? Share it with your friends and invite them into our virtual studio. If you’re on the Substack app, you can tap on the like button or restack to Notes to let me know you enjoyed this post.
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