Danielle Calabro

The reality is that a lot of things are going digital, and when it comes to art I have been putting it off. So last week I made the decision to purchase a Wacom Tablet, I am a beginner when it comes to digital drawing and it will take time to learn all the cool tools they have on the software. I choose a tablet that was the most cost effective for a beginner and I am happy with the results. I worked on this little tree for about 2 days, mostly because I was trying to find the right tool. I was a little worried about the size of the tablet but it matched the size of the work area on the computer. I originally purchased a cheap version of a graphics table years and years ago but I was never able to get the results I got with this one, honestly I never completely figured out how to use that one. since I am using a Mac I choose to use Sketchbook Pro, it is a hell of a lot cheaper then the Adobe Illustrator subscription, I am happy with the tools that Sketchbook Pro has to offer. So this...

Day 5 of #inktober So what do you do when your not happy with a drawing? Study it and see what the problem is and work on it. I am not use to using just ink, and learning how to control it is somewhat challenging. I had started with the tree and felt it was a little lonely so I added the extras. Making this a spooky little drawing.  I decided to purchase a few more pens and a vial of Winsor & Newton ink that did not come with that over priced bundle I received and to be honest, I like the supplies I purchased separately much better. I also think I am going to break out the grey Copic markers also, I should have plenty of time to learn some control with this Hurricane heading our way, nothing but time, at least for one day. Happy Inking 

"La Vita e Bella" This is Italian for "Life is Beautiful" and it is. To often we look at our struggles and ask "why me?" or "life sucks" but when you stop and think about the things you have, you can only be thankful, there are people that have it far worse. This was another experiment, I purchased a product called Brusho from Colourcraft, it is basically a powdered/crystalized ink. If you like how unpredictable watercolors are then you have to give these a try. I started of with the 12 pc set, I did not want to invest too much to try something out. You can still use these as watercolors but you have to be mindful not to accidentally get crystals from one color mixed with another. I think these are great for making some kick-ass backgrounds. This was one of a couple of attempts, I am still trying to figure this medium out. I used watercolor masking for the tree and lettering. 

This was the second background I was playing with, I wanted to change it up a little. Since the background was so dark I used white gouache to paint a tree. When I started I figured it would pull some of the watercolor into the white paint, which it did. I figured I would just give it another coat or two to get it pure white...... Well about 4 coats later and still have blue paint bleeding into the gouache. I even tried to paint it as dry as I could but it still came through. Not a big deal just a lesson learned, I am pretty sure it would have done this with the white ink also, I still like the way the background came out.

It's been a funny month, since I have went back to work it has been harder to stay creative, especially since the kids are out for the summer. We are also trying to finish getting things unpacked, shelves on walls, patio fan going up. I am ready for a nice lazy weekend where I can paint and spend time with my hubby.  This little piece was done with watercolors, gouache, white ink and gold jelly roll pen.

With so much going on I have been a little slow in posting, We moved in March and also found out that I had a large mass in my belly. The mass was a Ovarian cyst, thankfully I was able to get this removed last week and everything was fine. So this has freed up some time for me to focus on me and my art. Of course I have to take things a little slow for now so I am not pushing myself to hard but I am getting a little stir crazy (I can't even drive).  So this leads me to what I have been thinking about for the past 4 days, What do I want to do with my art? Well, I would like to learn new techniques and try new things. I have been subscribed to " Skillshare " for a few years now and I find that there are a lot of helpful classes, more then just art. Definitely worth checking out. I recently enrolled in a class by Ana Victoria Calderón , in this class she was teaching about negative space with three different techniques, I did two of them with planes to finish the th...

We have been super busy with the holidays Lately and I have found it hard to stay on top of everything. So where to start, we are waiting for the final "Gold Cert." on the loan approval for the house and it is driving me crazy and stressing me out. Its hard not to think about but we keep praying that everything will work out. Thanksgiving was great and time flew by getting to Christmas, only a few more days left and of course I have a couple more things to get got to love waiting on a pay check.  One thing I did not wait until the last possible minute on was Christmas cards. I only did 5, to be honest I loved doing the outside of the cards but the blank inside is what scared me the most.  THE SNOWMAN He is my favorite, just so darn cute. I used watercolor for the background and took a chance on the snowman and used gouache. I loved the matte finish the gouache has, I outlined using india ink. THE LIGHTS This is my second favorite, the lines were done with cop...

I have been super busy with the holidays lately and I haven't taken the time to Blog. I have however been busy creating. Here I was playing with watercolor and Gouache again. 

Unfortunately, here in Florida there is no such thing as seasons, you have hot, comfortable or wait its not supposed to be this cold in Florida. I have grown up in florida and have never had the opportunity to see the changing leaves of fall, when it gets to what we call cold in Florida you just see the trees loose their leaves. So in celebration of the fall season...... I wanted to try something a little different, this is done in india ink. I started with a cheap calligraphy brush but couldn't get the thin lines I was looking for so I switched to a calligraphy dip pen and #0 and #00 watercolor brushes. I did not draw this out first, I wanted to see what I could come up with right out of my head, there were a few mistakes but I made them work for me. I really like the way this came out and I am considering trying this on canvas with acrylics, maybe even add a little color.

Playing with a watercolor technique with the background and Gouache silhouette of trees.  The background did not come out as dark as I would have liked, still have to keep playing with the water and paint mixture. Either way, I am very happy with the way this came out. This is my favorite tree between the two of them Of course we all know, no two trees are the same. I find it relaxing painting a bare tree, sitting there with a brush and doing each individual branch. The thick and thin lines are teaching me 2 things: 1. Patients - Something I lack most of the time 2. Better brush control - I tend to have a heavy hand

Watercolor and Gouache A Lot of people I know have a pet or two or more, we have one 14yr old cat. His name is Jasper, I found him at work as a kitten roaming the parking lot, and he is a sweet cat, especially now that he is older. There are however a couple family members on both sides that do not feel that way about Jasper, he is a cat that knows what he does and does not want and if you are petting him wrong or he is done, he will let you know, of course he doesn't do that to us. He has put our kids in their place a few times, so now they are cautious around him. Jasper He use to be sneaky though, if my Hubby was aggravating him, Jasper would rub against my husbands legs really sweet like and then when he least expected it Jasper would turn and bite the back of my husbands ankle. I found it pretty funny and I always warn him that it was going to happen. When Jasper was younger I could get him to jump at least 3 feet in the air, he would run around the house all ...

This would be a great place to be when everything seems to be going wrong Watercolor Think about when you were a kid, how much you enjoyed running to the swings, trying to be the first kid there. Trying to go as high as you can, pretending you were fly off into space. Maybe even laying on your tummy pretending you were superman or in my case superwoman. I remember have contests with my friends, we would swing as high as we could then jump of to see who could land the farthest.   Those were the days, now a days I wish for a moment like that. Maybe it should be mediatory for jobs to have a swing in the office. Have a difficult customer, take a swing and fly away for a little while. Pain in the ass co-worker, go for a swing, kids driving you crazy, go for a swing. Where are all the playgrounds for adults?  The older we act, the faster life is sucking us dry. We need to take time out to be a kid again, let the stress of a bad day wash away with a little bit of f...

I know I said I was done doing trees for a while but I picked up this really cool handmade watercolor journal from hand-book journal Co from Hobby Lobby. The pages  have deckled edges, Love it! I wanted something to go across the first two pages and what better then a big tangled tree. As you can tell by this painting I really like Blue and green together and I added a touch of yellow. I also wanted to test some new white pens, which I have been on the hunt for forever and after a very intense search for the perfect white pen I stumbled across a few reviews on Uni-ball Singo Broad. I had never seen these in the store here so I ordered them off Amazon and I can say I absolutely love these. They have a nice thick line and have a great opaque white pigment. I didn't have a problem with them pulling up the black gouache, only one minor  problem, I went though the whole pen with this one tree. I also picked up the Uni-ball Angelic, it is great for the thinner lines but it doe...

I know I have been away for about a week, I have been working on a few things. I got over my little grumble about the business license and I am moving forward. As I said in one of my last post I am making my christmas cards this year, so I have started my first one. The background is done, all I need to work on is the lettering. I have not decided if I will do the lettering myself or have a hi-res scan of the painting and just use a font. I think I will do a couple of more then go from there. The background was done in watercolor, I used a watercolor mask for the stars. While the background was still wet I sprinkled table salt on it and got a nice speckled effect. The tress were painted with gouache, I wanted a nice opaque cover, along with a gold paint pen, this added a nice little shine to it. Of course I doubt I will be able to get that effect on a printed card and if I can I may end up paying more, something to think about, I then tangled the trees.

I have finished my final Zentree, as I have mentioned before I have decided to have prints made of my ZenTree Collection. There will be 4 of each for know. The first three I should have in a couple of weeks. They will be on cold press watercolor paper and printed with archival inks. I have made sure I have picked a high qualityArt printshop, I also did a walk through and I was very impressed. Needless to say I am very excited and proud of myself making this step. I know it will be an investment well made. My Etsy shop will be going through a name change and facelift over the next few days also. Watercolor, gouache and pen I let my daughter pick the colors for this one and in observation of the 4th of July she picked Red, White and Blue.  So it is on tho the next project, I have decided I am actually going to follow through with something I keep saying I am going to do. I will be creating my own Christmas cards this year. I know its a little early but I have had a habit...

Yes, I did another one, I love doing these trees. When something is not coming to mind they are my perfect fix. I went on a website last week and saw what one of them would look like on a pillow, phone case and iPad case, even a t-shirt and it looked good, I have also thought about turning some of these into journal covers, again I am not sure where to start. I would like to take this a little further but I am confused about the whole copyright and licensing part of all of this. I think it is time to sit down and do a little more research and reading. If there is anyone out there that can help point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it. I feel I have finally found my niche, I love to tangle and I have fallen for watercolors and gouache, the are unpredictable, that is what I love the most about them. As I am typing out this post I am thinking of my next project. The thing with tangling is it is a process, it is time consuming. I can sit down and start work...

Sometimes creating art takes a little longer then expected. I have been working on this for a few days and of course by the title and pictures you can tell I am still working on it. I drew out and erased a couple of times. I finally settled on a drawing. I went over it with a Copic Multiliner. Once that was done it was time to decide on a background, I used watercolor, I was not worried about the ink, it is water proof, also I wasn't worried about painting over the flowers or branches because I will be painting them with gouache. This part was done last night, I was able to get the background and branches painted before I had to call it a night. Still had to go to the J-O-B in the morning. I was actually a little pissed off this morning because I had to go to work when all I wanted to do is keep painting. So after my wonderful husband left for work and the kids were busy doing their thing, I went back to painting. Headphones on, good music playing and me in my own l...

One of my favorite trees is a Cherry Blossom Tree, they are beautiful in any scene.  This is a 24" x 24" canvas done in Acrylics, I am happy to say I had this one sold before I finished and it is off to a great home.

This painting was done with pages from an old book then covered with a thin layer of acrylic paint mixed with an airbrush medium to thin it out.  I then used Pebeo Fantasy paint then covered with resin.  Mixing the Vitrail and the Fantasy moon gave the tree its bark look. Then I used the Fantasy Prisme and moon to the foliage. Looking forward to see what I can do next with this medium.

So my job gets the huge reels that have plastic on it, once we are finished with a reel it gets broken down and thrown out.  I decided one day that I wanted to see what I could do with one and this is what I came up with, this is going to be a table top for my wonderful grill master husband, of course this is an unfinished project at the moment, I am trying to find a base for the table and I will be covering it with an Epoxy Resin.