Let’s Talk Watercolor!
I’m thrilled to introduce you to my bestie from Sweden: watercolor artist Maria Ahl-Zanier. She’s an incredibly talented artist living in a small town in the south of Sweden. She entered my world in 2019 because she wanted to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator to turn her large scale watercolor paintings into repeating patterns using Adobe Illustrator.
Why?
Because when your artwork is vectorized, you can leverage it across many more products. You can resize it, create new variations, develop repeating patterns or illustrations. Just think about it. Instead of having one original piece of art to sell, you can have a large variety of products showcasing that art work instead. Think pillows, tea towels, greeting cards, even a line of linen dresses!
Maria’s going to join me live for my weekly Wednesday conversation about art, creativity and surface design. We’ll be live on my Facebook business page and on my YouTube channel. It’s going to be lots of fun because Maria brings energy, enthusiasm and joy to her work. We’ll cover some of Maria’s philosophies around watercolor including:
#1 – Let the water flow
Maria creates beautiful and bold, loose watercolor artwork. She uses a lot of water, a large brush, and encourages her students to embrace the loose approach that she loves. She encourages us to enjoy the entire process of creating a piece of art. Watercolor art is a process of painting and letting things dry. And then painting some more and letting things dry again. You’ll learn about her online course called: Color Flow!
#2 – Be patient
The process of painting and letting it dry and doing that several times can be challenging for people like me who are eager to get to the finish line. LOL. I’ve discovered that working on several pieces at the same time helps me. It gives me something to do while one of the pieces is drying. You could, of course, just take a break and go for a walk instead.
#3 – Discover the unexpected
You really do need to be patient. You won’t know what the final result of your painting is until… it’s totally finished. This can be a bit of a circular reference. Meaning, how do you know when it’s “finished”?
Maria encourages us to hold off on evaluating or assessing our watercolor work with a critical eye until it is, really, finished. Along the way to being finished, it can look funny. Or you can start thinking: “Hmmm! I don’t like what this is looking like.” But wait! Complete the process. The whole process. And you will be pleasantly surprised at the final outcome.
As always, please join me LIVE this Wednesday, March 13 at noon pacific / 3pm eastern for my weekly Wednesday broadcast about art, creativity and surface design. Mark your calendar and join me for a lively conversation with Maria. While you wait, learn more about her on her website.
We’ll be live on my Facebook business page and on my YouTube channel.
See you then!
Anne
xo,
Anne
It’s Never Too Late to Create®
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MEET ANNE
Hi…I’m Anne!
My creative inspiration comes from a lifetime of observation. I grew up in Paris on the Place St. Sulpice and walked to school through the Luxembourg gardens. And that was only the beginning… Learn more by watching the video on my About page.
