The Daily ATC Challenge: Day 9

The theme for day 9 of the ATC Challenge is: APPLES

In 20074 on tbis day, less than a decade ago, Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone. It’s incredible that something we consider so much a part of our daily lives is still so new! I feel like I’ve had my (android) smart phone for ages. In honor of that first iPhone, today is for creating apples be they drawn, painted, or sketched. Create a still life from an apple you’re having for lunch. Or sketch your phone. Or an Apple logo. Maybe cut up an apple and use the fruit itself to do some stamping!

Here’s what I came up with:

Prismacolor colored pencils and graphite on that horrible cheap watercolor paper

PRANG watercolor on 140lb hot press watercolor paper

I haven’t used my Prismacolor pencils in ages and I enjoyed it. However, the paper was frustrating along with how the graphite outlines resisted the colored pencil. I suppose knowing that it resists now I could use that for effect though, so as usual, at least I learned something new! As for the Apple logo? I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it either. Photography was hard again due to the lack of natural light, but it was also complicated by the fact that my ATC is shiny. I put the paint on rather thickly so I could get it to drip, and I think that put on so thickly, it becomes shiny sort of like in the pans of paint in the box. This is the first time my cheap grade watercolors have failed me. In addition to the shiny paint fail, I’m not happy with my drips. I had a hard time getting it to drip at all so I blew on it which ended up making some more horizontal drips which wasn’t quite what I wanted. I love the drippy brightly colored watercolor portraits I’ve seen others do. It’s very far outside my style, but I figured I’d like to try it for a few of my ATCs. On this first drippy ATC, I’ve learned I must use higher quality paints if I want to put the paint on so thickly. I think the other solution would be to use more water so I get better dripping and don’t loose too much of the transparency of the paint.