Moon Child

We have had some beautiful Summer evenings lately here in the UK. Summer has arrived at last and at the end of the day when everything is quiet even our rather scruffy garden looks so lovely in the moonlight! 

There is usually a soft breeze which sways the branches of the trees and the shamefully overgrown grass and the large golden Harvest Moon makes everything looks magical.

I wanted to capture the way that the moonlight shines in cool, silvery slivers on everything it touches, only just highlighting the textures of nature and making us imagine the shapes still in shadow.

I'm not very good at drawing faces. I usually avoid them and draw something else instead. But as I usually encourage my students to be fearless I thought I'd take my own advice and try painting a moonlit face on a black background.

I started with a wash of black acrylic on watercolour paper followed by a wash of metallic gold and bronze to give a bit of shimmer.

Then I painted the face with a wash of thinned white. I wanted the darkness to provide the shadows. The rest of the paper was filled with plant shapes in the same wash of white. The brush still had a bit of gold on it so there are yellowy hints in there too.

I then had a lovely time back in my comfort zone, with my trusty white pen, doodling in all the moonlit highlights. 

I'm quite pleased with it! I like the way the gold peeks through the white wash to give it some depth and just a little bit of shimmer.

Here is a close up of the eye so you can get a better look at the layers. 

The Moon!

I've been promising for ages to do a step by step tutorial on making and using circle stencils in an Art Journal.

If you'd like to follow along with this post you will see how simple it is to get some lovely effects with just a few circles cut from plastic and some black and white acrylic paint.

I started by cutting my stencil from Mylar and a Sizzix Circle Die but you could cut one from plastic by drawing around a cup, a small bowl or anything else in a variety of sizes. 

The thing that I like about this Sizzix die is that it cuts  3 perfect circles and that it is endlessly repeatable. You also get the perfect matching Masks. All very quick if everyone at a workshop wants to cut a set for themselves! Let me know in the comments if you'f like a post about using masks.

In my journal, I started by painting my page black. As usual, I had a  bit of white on the brush too so that I got a variety of shades of grey along with the black. This will give you a much more interesting background.

Now place the largest circle stencil in the top left side of the page and swirl paint around within the shape. It is good to keep the paint pretty dry on the brush to avoid the paint seeping through the edges. As you can see with mine, I didn't follow my advice! But all will be fine in the end. I never worry about these things. It is better to have some great texture than perfect edges. You can paint in the edges later if you go wrong.

I wanted to add some shading to the moon to give it more interest;

I stippled some black paint onto the moon with a dry brush and them used a scrunched up piece of tissue to take some paint off and add texture at the same time.

Next I added the water. For this I used the paint that was left on the brush to drag horizontal lines across the page.

And then dragged black across to add shadows, bring out the highlights and create the effect of the the moonlight on the water.

I then added a border with a stencil I made and a Stampendous butterfly stamp onto the moon. On the journal page at the top of this post you can see  that I have highlighted the details on the butterfly with a white gel pen and then used the same pen to add foliage to the foreground of the scene. I have also added stars to the sky with a tiny brush. You can also do this with the gel pen.

I will add the finishing details when this page is dry and add it to this page tomorrow. Happy Moonlighting!

Update! I've added the white pen details to he butterfly, water and added foliage to the foreground. Finished!