Artist Spotlight: Seb Barnett

It's been a while since my last post. One thing or another took my focus this past few weeks.

Today I learned some terrible news that a beautiful soul lost the battle with depression and took their own life. Seb Barnett was an incredible artist who inspired me and encouraged me. I wish I'd known you better when I had the chance. The world is less bright without you in it.

Blodeuwedd by Seb Barnett

I remember that Seb often railed against the idea of artistic "talent" as something you either had or you didn't. Instead Seb championed the notion that accomplished artists were the ones who put years and years of work into honing their craft.

So here I am, back at it with blogging my progress, still at the beginning of my journey, trying to follow your lead and put the work in.

Diva Challenge #287

I started with a watercolor background, created the design using Staedtler fineliner pens, and then I deepened the color shading with Neocolor II watersoluble crayons and Prismacolor colored pencils. I learned a valuable lesson about the way that finely sharpened colored pencils can sometimes scratch through the softer, more fibrous watercolor paper I was using for this piece. You might notice that one of the abstract orb shapes looks a bit more like a pearl than the others. That one got a bit of Liquid Pearls paint to cover the damaged paper.

Windsor & Newton watercolor in
Transparent Yellow and Quinacridone Magenta

Work in progress, after inking the design I
added shading with watersoluble crayon and colored pencil

Diva Challenge #287 on watercolor tile
Dreamcatcher, Nebel, Yincut, and Sandswirl

Daniel Lamothe's Dreamcatcher pattern is quite stunning all on it's own. Here I let it take center stage with a mandala-like circular symmetry. I used a Uniball Signo white ink pen and a white chalk pastel pencil on coal black Strathmore sketch paper. I was inspired to try my hand at the convergent shading technique shared by Lynn Mead.

Diva Challenge #287 on black tile

This post is for you, Seb. You are missed.