February Instagram Challenge

As you know from a former post professional illustrator, and Skillshare instructor, Ohn Mar Win has been a beacon of inspiration for me. She, along with a few other artists I have featured here in the past, have fueled my desire to get back into watercolor painting for which I am hugely grateful.

She has a range of ideas for artists. For example, not only does she teach watercolor painting, but she incorporates Adobe program skills, long/short term goal planning, and now she is teaching about making the best use of an Instagram account to build your following. She is so generous with her knowledge and quite delightful to listen to as well.

I am currently participating in a two week challenge, hosted by Ohn Mar as the project for her newest Skillshare class. I have already seen changes my IG performance and results. I have always been weak in my social networking skills so I thought the challenge would do me good. I was right!

Not only have I grown in followers, but the engagement I am seeing is so much more fun and, well... engaging. I am enjoying messaging back and forth to some fellow artists and, in the process, I have learned about some new art techniques, helpful apps and online resources. Who knew???

Besides having a wonderful time posting my Valentines art, I learned how to apply a digital logo watermark to protect my art. I also You can check out my Valentines IG images here. Please feel free to comment in one of my posts and say hello.

New Color Tool

Once again, I’m like a kid in a candy store with a new online color tool I just discovered! Pigment by Shapefactory.com is my newest toy and it is so easy to use. And yes it’s a great way to get inspired if you’re stuck in what colors you would like to work with currently.

With one click here and one click there you can select your color, lighten or darken it, and select it’s tints or shades. It also pairs the color with other comparable ones, so you can imagine how they can be used in your projects, along with the RGB, Hex and Pantone color codes.

I created this video to demonstrate how Pigment works after I played around with it for a few minutes. I’m not sharing this as an expert by any means. I just want to to show how simple it is to maneuver its basic features.

I could see fine artists, interior designers, graphic designers, fashion designers all benefiting in a big way from this tool. How would you use it in your projects? Are there any Pigment pros out there who can share some additional tips? Would love to hear from any of you in the comments!

Breaking Inspiration Block

As you know from a post from late last year, I collaborated with professional archivist Charlotte Robinson. We compared notes on how the preservation of our precious digital data will affect us going forward. For me, my art is of utmost importance to me so I paid attention. I also shared my thoughts with her from an artist’s point of view.

What I didn’t expect is the difference this collaboration would make. I was so refreshed and inspired afterwards that I wanted to do another one. Sharing ideas with another creative is like nothing else. If you’re lacking ideas for projects, content or whatever else, try reaching out to a few people out there you may want to work with and see what happens. You may be surprised!!

Random Inspiration

Inspiration can truly come from anywhere. As I was driving one evening, I witnessed a gorgeous desert sunset. However, it was a different than the normal yellows, oranges, and pinks. It was more a blue and yellow in varying tones.

Although the colors were much more muted than I am used to, because it was so different than normal, it got my attention. I did the above iPhone finger painting on the Procreate app, while capturing the colors in the sky. It was interesting how it quite looks like a color mood board for one of my projects.

How do you capture your thoughts and ideas and inspirations? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

February Instagram Challenge, New Color Tool, Networking with Creatives, Inspiration is Everywhere