This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco. Wrestling Your Naysayers When an artist’s practical ingredients are missing (supplies, space), that's a legitimate road block to creativity. But the most important foundation to making art is not as functional as brushes and paint - it's in our heads. Words as Art Supplies. Wrestling with the mental side of being a creative person requires observational stamina, and conviction to re-write our own scripts. Anyone who wishes they were making art more often knows the struggle. What are the ingredients of the blocades on repeat i ..read more

This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco. Consuming Social Media, or Creating Art I've been thinking about the tug-of-war between consuming social media and creating art. The come-hither glow of visual stimulation in social media, and the resulting deflation as a result of comparison is worth a personal survey. Reaching for a screen is Soooo Easy. But is it good for the artist in us? Scrolling through FB or Instagram or YouTube (or all of them in the same sitting), is such a passive action of consumption - it’s akin to eating a whole plate of frosted cupcakes. The on ..read more

This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco. My Favorite Pencil and Graphite Drawing Supplies After two decades of drawing, and lots of emails with the same questions, this post is focused on my favorite pencil and graphite drawing supplies. I've included links to resources when I could find them, in case you want to supplement your art supply cupboard. If any of the items I've described here are puzzlers to you, please leave questions in the comments. I always love to hear from you, and I try to respond quickly. Using my favorite mechanical pencil (I got it from Amazon ..read more

This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco. Tearing Full Sheets of Fine Art Paper to Smaller Sizes When I started my creative adventures, I was baffled by the assortment of papers available for watercolor painting and printmaking. Many of the recommended fine art papers were only available in full sheets, and I liked to practice by working small. Tearing down full sheets of paper to smaller sizes gave me pause because it required math, and I'm about six years old with numbers. Also, paper is expensive, so mistakes and/or waste while reducing the sheets would be costly ..read more

This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco. Practicing Watercolor Painting in the Evening on the Couch I dearly love painting watercolors in the evening on the couch. It's the best way I know to unwind the day and relax before bedtime. Practicing watercolor painting might not fit into every hectic day, but I can almost always squeeze in an hour or so before climbing under the covers. Have you tried approaching your painting time this way? Laying washes into a sketchbook practice painting a cafe baristaSqueezing Art Time In My secret weapon for painting watercolors on t ..read more

This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco. Sketching People in Watercolors Figurative watercolors are - to me - one of the most challenging subjects to sketch and paint. Watercolor is already an ambitious medium, and under the pigments, there is a desire for anatomically accurate drawing. It’s also hard to capture an individual's carriage and gesture, so the figure doesn’t look stiff and unnatural. And then there’s likeness, if you want the figure painting to look like your subject… sketching people in watercolors can be a layer cake of frowny-face effort. Challeng ..read more

This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco. Colored Pencil Portrait on Black Paper I've been experimenting with black paper - using colored pencils, pastels, and gouache. This little portrait sketch was inspired by a 1907 photo of my great-grandmother, just after she emigrated from Italy to Yonkers, New York. She died from "consumption" (tuberculosis) not long after the photo was taken, at age 24. I don't know for sure, but I often imagine that my great-grandfather arranged the portrait to be taken as a memento for their three young children. I've sketched and drawn he ..read more

This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco. Small Landscape Study in Watercolor with Colored Pencil Something about cypress trees makes me want to draw and paint them as small landscape studies. They remind me of giant green pencil leads or verdant paint brush tips pointing at the sky, and I've rendered them in watercolor, pencil, and printmaking over the years. My reference photos are from a magical time spent in Provence, France. (Isn't it great that you can re-visit a place you traveled to years ago by simply pulling out the photos you took and painting from them? A ..read more

This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco. Watercolors, Sketching, Printmaking, and Stitching - an Art Studio Update As I mentioned in the last post, I have mountains of unfinished art in my studio, and tucked into my meandering artist's tote bag. I’m working on watercolors, sketching, printmaking, and stitching, all at once. (Insert big-eyed scaredy face here.) I'd like to share a few adventures here, with an art studio summer update on my boil-over of projects, and a significant sale of all framed art in my Etsy shop over Labor Day weekend. Melanie's unfinished stit ..read more

This is a post from Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco. Small Figurative Watercolor Studies I promised a segue from the gel plate monoprint marathon, so here we are, painting small (quick) figurative watercolor studies at the kitchen counter. But there are more gel plate prints coming, so be warned... I'm adding colored pencil to them this week. It's noteworthy - to me - that one process informs the other. Playing with watercolor yesterday conjured thoughts I had about light-to-dark and dark-to-light color play with monoprints. All art-making methods are intertwined with overlappi ..read more