New Direction, Same Spirit

It's always been difficult for me to get back into art after an absence. The longer the absence, the harder it is and the longer it takes me. This was the longest time in my adult life I have gone without painting or drawing most days.

experimental tablet painting!

I did work on some creative projects like writing, gardening, and photography, so I did have creativity in my life. But when I tried to sketch out a painting like I used to, I couldn't get into it. I tried a Wacom tablet and various drawing programs. That did not help either. Finally, I started drawing on a regular tablet using a cheap stylus and I started making art on a regular basis again.

I knew I wanted to get back to making an art-based business, but with a different business model than I had before. Selling original paintings is hard work. Each one has to be scanned, listed for sale online, and then stored until they are sold. When they sell, they have to be packaged and shipped. This makes sense if you sell expensive paintings. But when you sell many small paintings, it is not an efficient way to work.

So it looks like an easy answer would be to make larger and more expensive paintings. But I like to work small.

It has been a long time.

Nine years later, I'm back.

I started working in property management. For the first few years I did really well and it was a rewarding experience. But it is a stressful business even under the best conditions. After a while, it seemed like the harder I worked and tried to do a good job and be honest, the worse things got. In the end, I was very stressed out and had gained a large amount of weight from comfort eating and not exercising.  I was depressed and my house and my life were a mess.

I set about to improve my life. I started walking long distances, doing intermittent fasting and I cut out most sugars in my diet. As I got in better health, I was able to get to the mental state where I was working on getting my house fixed up and my life in order. I also started experimenting with language learning and teaching. This led me to where I am now - working on a degree in Educational Design and Technology. It's an online degree, and since I want to develop online education I think that is very appropriate.

New Melsky Art

Cat Fish City Before and After

I finished this one today, painting it with watercolor and then outlining in black ink. I think it turned out pretty well. Pastel colored paintings like this don't show up as well online as the bright colored ones.

House of Happy Cats painting

This is a recent painting, I just finished it last week! It is watercolor, acrylic and ink.

The reason it has acrylic is that I made a mistake. I started painting sky where the house was supposed to be. So I painted over it with acrylic. The rest of the painting is watercolor and ink.

Tiger Lily Kitten

Here's another recent painting. This is watercolor and ink. I started by drawing on watercolor paper, then painted it in with watercolor. Then I did the background of the sky with permanent ink marker. That was a long process. I should have made it a bit less detailed but once I start a background I usually will just do the whole thing in the same way. Then I used a permanent ink marker to do the outlining.

I've noticed that a lot of my paintings feature orange cats, goldfish and tiger lilies but I don't think I have a painting with all three of them. I'll have to do one.

Sleepy Spiral Cat before and after

It's amazing how much it changes after the watercolor and ink additions. I used acrylic paint for the moon and stars, and then outlined with ink.

Another Cat Painting and a Defense of Coloring Books

Here is another new old painting! It's probably four months old.

This is one I did when I first got my watercolor crayons and colored pencils. I was experimenting with the new media.

I have a couple of different techniques and styles of painting. This is one of my standard ones. I draw an outline with pencil, then color it in. Then I add details.

I have not thought about this for a long time, but when I was a child I used to really like coloring books, crayons and watercolors. I liked having outlines and coloring them in and experimenting with different color combinations. I think doing that a lot helped me as an artist.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I also had those paint by water books - where you would have a picture that was colored in by all these dots, and when you applied water with a brush it would turn into watercolor paint. I loved these!

I have heard from a couple of places that coloring books are bad for children and they stifle creativity. I don't think that's true - for me they helped me learn the use of color and how to use a brush. I learned how to stay in the lines! You don't have to always stay in the lines but it's good to be able to do it when you want to. They taught me the skills I needed to do my own art.