And just like that, the last week of July has flown by. It’s time to gear up for August (and it’s going to be crazy). Let’s take a look at the final week of July and talk about August plans.

 

1. Pastel ((See all on instagram under #greenrainartpastels ):

Three paintings this week! And I am delighted with all three.

Plans: I will do my best and do at least one pastel painting per week, I hope instagram art challenge will be back from vacation soon too.

2. Make Art That Sells (my MATS adventures can be seen on instagram under the tag #greenrainartmats):

MATS Bootcamp July gallery is up and look who was the first entry!  I fell like such a good student to not only be on time, but on time before everyone else:D But really, check out the gallery the amount of talent in this class is incredible! I am truly humbled by all these amazing people and glad to learn from them.

I had tons of fun (and struggle) completing my MATS A Home Decor unit assignment. We were to make plates with Staffordshire Pottery like figurines for an influence. I went back and forth between these two variations:

and finally I settled on “all front facing” version, with a hope to make a separate “all sideways” collection in the future too

MATS prep activities kicked off on MATS blog today and will go on for the rest of the week in preparations to amazing MATS Home Decor class, which I am taking for the first time. I am scared and excited and hopefully can take my career to another level after that.

 

My first warm up exercise was making a teacup design:

Plans: Well, Home Dec class mostly and hopefully being an active part of MATS community, such wonderful crowd!

 

3. World Watercolor Month is finished! (see all my works on insta under #greenrainartwwm17 ) I was so glad I found time to participate in such a fun challenge.

Plans: I really hope to continue with doodlewash challenge, it looks so fun!Also  it’s incredible how out of practice I felt this month and I love watercolor and hope to hone my skills rather than kill them. So I will do my best and try with the challenge.

4. Two works for 52 weeks illustration challenge (all drawings for this challenge can be now seen under #greenrainart52w tag on instagram), both done digitally this time.

The themes were:

Swing

and

Home

Plans: Absolutely will continue!

5. For #greenrainartfromlife I made two drawings- catching up to the theme “Fabric”

and drawing a can of grapefruit lemonade (I didn’t read past the English instructions on the host’s post and didn’t realize she actually meant for us to draw lemonade in a clear glass, but as I didn’t have time to redraw I just left it as is)

Plans: Continue! Although I have to do something about either paper or my working habits, coloring with colored pencils leaves my wrist in ruins every time 😦 I think maybe I am gripping the pencil too hard or I don’t even know what. I want to continue doing this challenge in colored pencil specifically, because I don’t draw with them unless prompted.

6.  Excited to pick up collages again. This time not just small tidbits for challenge or journal, but for 2018 calendar! I offered a calendar last year in a very limited quantities and mostly to friends and family. This year I hope to get done early enough to put it up on my etsy shop at least. Find all of my collages on instagram under #greenrainartcollage hashtag

I am very excited about this project, and this is my plan for August- to continue working on it and hopefully finish all the artwork by mid-September. There will probably be another “favorite drawings of 2017” calendar and I want to make a few with my best pastels .We shall see

 

7. Made a couple of copic marker drawings. Strange how I love markers and rarely pick them up these days.

 

Plans for August: Hopefully actively use markers in my MATS assignments

8. Illustrated Journal continues  (See all on instagram under #greenrainartij ), as it shall in August

Other events of this past week include ETSY UPDATE! I added a few more cards and renewed the autumn ones. Don’t miss them!

So this is my July. Incredible how fast the summer goes. It is a little scary how in less than three weeks I will be eyeballs deep in my kids school and activities affairs and I feel I hardly rested at all. But I was having so much fun this summer with my art projects and fall means my own classes (all booked up through mid-November and I am going to learn LOTS)

Here’s to a fantastic August for everyone!

Love,

Anya

As always, please find me on Instagram,  Facebook, Pinterest and Etsy