Day 13 of 30 Paintings in 30 Days: “Valentine” watercolor and ink on Canson, 140 lb, 6×6

I knew February 14th would arrive before my Day 13 painting was finished, so I wanted it to be something special for my Valentine. While it bears significance for my hubby and me, this project also gave me a lot of practice in moving from dark to light with each of the colors.

I created a heart stencil from a scrap piece of paper so I could easily make all the hearts look the same. After penciling them in place, I went over with the 0.3 Micron. I then colored around the edges of each heart with almost all the colors in my set (brown and white were not used). Then I penciled the words onto the hearts. I inked a few of the words in on the bookmark, then held off on the rest when I remembered that the ink would smear with the application of water. Sure enough, it smeared, but not too much. Even so, I’m glad I saved all the rest of the inking for after the paint had dried. Finally, I penciled and then inked the message in the center, without bothering to draw lines first. For the center message I used both 0.3 and 0.8 Micron pens. I wish I had other colors besides black. Well, I have white, but that wouldn’t work here. 🙂

This time I did try for a nice gradual transition from the darker edges to the lighter center, and several of them turned out just as I had hoped. But the most fun came from anticipating how my husband will react when he sees it tomorrow (or should I say, later on today)….

6×6 card and matching 3×6 bookmark

Song of Solomon 5:16 His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend….

My Beloved

Twice I have been blessed
For you are my beloved
And you are my friend

Katauta
Copyright © 2018 Angela Umphers Rueger – All Rights Reserved

A Katauta is a 3-lined Japanese love poem with 17-19 syllables.
The syllabic count is generally 5-7-5 or 5-7-7.
It is considered only half a poem, but two Katautas form a Sedoka.

What’s the difference between a Katauta, a Senryu, and a Haiku?
All 3 of these forms have the same syllabic structure; the difference is the theme.

Haiku is about nature.
Senryu is about human nature.
Katauta is about love.

If you are interested in joining the challenge, you can sign up at Leslie Saeta’s 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge and then post and/or view the other entries at the linkup.