Good day beautiful!

Welcome to October. The theme for this month is 'Celebration and Growth' and when I started thinking about my growth this year, I found myself 'disappointed'. Instead of searching for growth I could work with in a 'happy way', I decided to connect with my sadness & disappointment and explore why I felt I hadn't achieved 'the thing that I thought I would achieve'.

Digging a bit deeper I realised that the particular issue I was sad about was an issue I've struggled with my whole life. I spent some time mourning and giving myself compassion and kindness around this painful issue in my life. I then looked at this issue more deeply and realised that I -in fact- am making progress, perhaps not as quickly as I'd like it to be; but progress is being made. Baby steps. So I decided I wanted to celebrate these baby steps. When I thought about how to symbolically represent my growth on this issue, a whale seemed liked the perfect representation: it's large and vast, but slow, gracious and steadily making its way through a large dark space. I also consider the whale to have a lot of wisdom which resonated with me too.

So today, I'd like you too to look at any growth you have undergone this year, any achievements you've made or goals you've reached and look at how you can celebrate them. If, like me, you find yourself a bit disappointed, connect with that sadness and give yourself some kindness and compassion around this issue (life is hard and we all struggle). You can then look at how you have perhaps made little baby steps of progress within this issue and celebrate that progress, or if you have another thing that you've totally progressed on, you can choose that too!

Then select imagery to represent your growth, or if you simply also want to do a whale, you can do that too! :)

I hope you enjoy the lesson today, I look forward to your work! :)

LoveTam x

Supplies Used Today

• 9 x 12” Watercolour Paper – Hot Pressed– 140lbs (I use Daler Rowney The Langton)(or equivalent paper, a minimum of 140lbs)• Water-soluble Crayons (Caran D'ache)• Collage Papers• Matte medium adhesive• Acrylics paints• White gesso• Brayer• Paint markers (posca pens)• Alcohol (Isopropanol 99.9% - use with care = flammable)• Plain table salt

Step 1. Start sketching your animal or natural creature to represent your growth. I drew a whale and a moon. I added wings to the whale for fun, you can make your animal as 'non-realistic' as you like. Go with what 'feels good to you'.

I added other elements like a face in the moon, waves and a boat. Again, if you want to add elements go with what suits your theme and the growth you are trying to represent. Go with what is applicable to your own theme (if that's what you're doing, otherwise follow what I do, of course!:))

Step 2. I added collage elements.

Listen to the Sacred Messages

If you find any {sacred} messages in your collage by any chance, notice them! :) They might be sending you some special messages. :)

Step 3. Add colour with watercolour crayons:

Step 4. Activate the crayons with water & a paintbrush:

Step 5. Add a layer of gesso with a brayer to unify the page and to create a 'distressed' effect.

Step 6. This process often causes some of the graphite details to be lost. I like to bring them back with graphite at this point.

Step 7. I wanted the moon to have a 'mottled' effect which I created with the 'salt technique'. Add watercolour paint and watery acrylics to the area you want to 'mottlefy' (it's a technical term I've just invented).

Step 8. Add salt over the wet paint – let air dry or use a hair dryer/ heat gun – make sure it's super dry before removing the paint.

Step 9. Once the salted area is completely dry, remove the salt – use sand paper to fully remove it if it doesn't come off any other way.

Step 10. I then added more colour to the moon using acrylics (high flow) – this optional

continuing with the whale

Step 11. I had previously added some colour to the whale with watersoluble crayons, I decided I wanted to deepen the colour of the whale with more layering of crayons & acrylics.

Step 12. Using the 'dry scrubbing technique' I managed to get a nice blending going between the purple and the bottom blues in the whale.

Step 13. For the background I chose to use an 'indigo blue' from the crayon neocolor II series.

Step 14. To create a 'splotchy' effect in the 'universe' I used Isopropanol alcohol. If you drip this onto wet acrylics or watercolour paint is creates interesting 'rings'. Warning: Please be careful using this chemical, it's toxic, poisonous and flammable. The technique is also optional!

Step 15. In order to define the whale more I used a black posca pen.

Finishing the Moon

I sketched in a face and added some light shading but didn't go into the detail I would normally go into on a normal face because I wanted the texture of the moon to remain.

Final Touches

With a white posca pen I drew the butterfly wings on the whale, hung some hanging hearts and stars off the moon and drew the waves and the boat.

To create a 'starry sky' I splatter white acrylics onto the background by banging two brushes (or other hard tool) against each other.

And here is the finished painting:

Some close up shots:

Thanks so much for being here today with me! I hope you enjoyed the lesson and I hope to see your beautiful work! :D

Keep on arting and loving on yourself and your loved ones. You are awesome! :)

Big hugsTam xo

© Willowing Arts Ltd – 2014 – http://www.willowing.org/