Relaxing Paint with Me ✿ Full Watercolor Painting Process

Hello, how are you doing? I haven't talked to you in a while, so let's catch up today and you can watch my little painting process and I can talk a little bit about what I have been up to, what's been going on with work, and just in my regular personal life when I'm not working. It's all pretty chill, but I just haven't talked to you in a long time and I miss you. I've been still sort of recording videos casually as I've been taking my little break from YouTube, but one of the reasons I just haven't posted on YouTube is I've been busy creating and editing videos for my watercolor course. My course launched in November and that launch went really well. I just put out my first update for the course that includes a new module and a couple of other lessons to the course, but that took me such a long time to edit and create even. I was working 80 hour weeks for about two months creating the course, which was quite a lot. It really burned out my stamina bar when it came to video editing and I have needed a bit of a break and even during the break I still edit videos quite a lot for short form content or just in general for my course. So yeah, I've been a bit burnt out from video editing. It takes me quite a long time. Historically, I've posted in 4k and I've wanted my quality to be pretty high, but truthfully, I don't really like video editing. I am not very good at it. You know, some people are crazy with really good edits, really compelling visuals. They are cinematographers, you know. I very much create videos from necessity to show my process because I want to show you what I'm working on, but it's not that the video creation itself, that part, I'm not great at it, you know. That's why I've been gone from YouTube for quite a bit. I don't have a posting schedule planned, but you know, I still have filmed a couple of videos here and there and I'd like to share with you what I've been creating and the behind the scenes on the actual process because that's my very favorite part of YouTube is showing how a piece comes together. I think that's so fun. What else have I been up to? When it comes to work, apart from my watercolor course, I have been busy with my art retreats. I can't believe that they have been doing so well and that I'm getting to do as many as I have. In December, I hosted an art retreat to Japan. I was in Japan for over a month. It was so incredible. I was there over the holidays for Christmas and for New Year's because Zack's birthday is New Year's Eve, and so I figured it might be fun to spend New Year's Eve in Japan. It really was, but if you're also kind of planning on going to Japan in December, a word of warning is that a lot of things are closed for the New Year. So from around December 27th to January 5th, a lot of stores were closed. It was a lot more calm than I thought it was going to be. I don't know. I kind of figured Tokyo was rowdy and rambunctious for New Year's Eve because it's a city. It was so quiet. You would never have known that it was a holiday, and from my understanding of it now, a lot of people go to shrines. It's a very peaceful and family-oriented time for people, which I think is really special. This was my second trip to Japan, but I want to go back. I love it so much. It's just so clean, safe, quiet. The food is incredible. Every single meal you'll have is just top tier. So yeah, I went to Japan in December, and then I hosted another art retreat in May in Korea, which was incredible. That is the closest in between two retreats that I've hosted so far, which was five months, I believe. I was a little bit nervous because I've never been to Korea before. The only other Asian country I had to compare Korea to was Japan, and they are very, very different. Korea is a lot more Western, and it's a lot rowdier, louder, and more friendly. People in Korea are so insanely fashionable. The vibe in Korea was a lot more fun. Japan is just a quieter and more calm and introspective sort of experience. It's also such a generalization from the little amount of travel that I've done relative to how big of a country and how many experiences you can have in those countries. So if you have a different itinerary, you stay in different locations, you will have different experiences, of course. I love both. I am so excited to go to Korea again. It's fresh on my mind. It was so beautiful because it was May. We went to Jeju on the art retreat, and we created so much art on that retreat. It was so creatively fulfilling, and I hope for my future retreats to be able to maybe do some sort of vlogging. To be fair, I'm pretty bad at capturing footage or photos in the moment. If you didn't know that this was my job, if you know me in regular life, I'm not on my phone very much. I don't really use my personal social media. When I'm having a good time, I never sit and think I need a photo of this because I'm a really in the moment type of person, and so I've had struggles with even capturing content from my art retreats because I have such a good time on these retreats. Morning to night, I'm constantly talking to travelers. So yeah, I am really excited to do another retreat with the same company that I went to Korea with, which is Good Mate. They are a Korean company, and that was really evident in the itinerary. We did a bunch of crazy things, like we did a cooking class where we made kimbap, and the company that we did it with does so much food staging for insane TV shows. It works with huge celebrities like Jimin from BTS, and that was really cool. We also went to the Royal Palace, and we dressed up in hanbok, and got these professional photos done. It was such a fun experience. It was so special. So many Korean people came up to us, and they told us we were beautiful, and we got to draw at the palace. So we had lots of like little old Korean people come up to us and ask us what we were drawing, and look over our shoulders. So it was so cute. Honestly, the hanbok day was probably one of my very favorite days, and then we also got to meet the female divers at Jeju, which is so cool. If you don't know about the female divers, there's an Apple documentary, I believe. They are essentially a lost art, and there are not many female divers left, and all of them are very, very old. I mean, there are still schools where you can learn it, but very few people are learning to become female divers, and so hopefully it won't be a fully lost art soon, but it was really cool to be able to speak to the female divers, and to hear about their life experiences, you know, their favorite parts of it, why they do it. Spoiler alert, we spoke to two, and one of them was like so cynical, but like in a really cute way, and so we would ask her, you know, why do you do this? She was like, I'm only doing this for money, and then we would ask her like, you know, do you want young people to do this? She's like, no, it's so hard. She's got kids. She never would want those her kids to do it. It's really fascinating to hear from them, and for myself anyway, it was a really cool example of strong, like physically strong, mentally strong women, especially because in the U.S., as you become older, you kind of lose your value in society, especially older women, which is really sad, so it was really cool to hear from these women that were 75 years old, and so physically strong, and mentally, emotionally strong. It was very inspiring, so the art retreats that I've been fortunate enough to host have been incredible. They're so enriching, and I've learned so much from the retreats, so that's what I really focus my time on. Like, I try to get a lot of work done before the retreats, and then right after I come, I'll be swamped with work, and so I'll choose to be gone for a couple of weeks around the retreats because honestly, the only like real vacations I take are when I go on the retreats, so you know, the one week of the retreat is work technically, although it doesn't really feel like work. It's just so enriching, and then I'll spend one or two weeks on vacation in that place. I don't really take too many casual weekend vacations or, you know, travel to other states very much anymore because all of my time off, I kind of put it into a really long trip around the art retreat. This retreat talk is kind of bringing me to what the inspiration for the artwork that I'm creating today, the watercolor is, which is my next retreat, which is going to be in France in May of 2027. I am so excited about this. This next one that I'm hosting in France next May is fully a watercolor retreat, and so every single day, we're going to be watercolor painting. We're going to be staying at a Napoleonic-era private estate with huge grounds, heated pool, pond. We're going to be staying next to a beautiful little town, and in the region of I believe that's how you say it, which is one of France's most beautiful regions. It has some of the most beautiful villages. There's like a whole association for the most beautiful villages in France, I believe, but I'm so excited to go. I have been dreaming of doing another retreat with Uptrek because it is such a different but special experience where we have a private chef, and we have French wines, and the whole time, we're really living the most idyllic, artsy, fairytale kind of dream where we're all just drawing together, watercolor painting. So I'm writing up my curriculum, so I'm so excited to host this retreat. Genuinely, it cannot come soon enough, but that one is still open for registrations, so if you want to join me on a retreat, please do. You're going to love it. I cannot stress to you how life-changing these experiences are. On every retreat, we cry saying goodbye because they're so incredible, and there are already several repeat travelers who have booked this trip to France, so if you're kind of nervous about it, you will love it. I'm telling you, I'm telling you. I would love for you to join, so if you're interested, it's going to be linked down in the description, or you know, feel free to send me a message on Instagram or send me an email if you have any questions about it, if you're like curious about coming but you don't really know what to expect, or if you have any reservations or concerns. It's going to be the seventh art retreat that I've hosted. I'm excited to go to Europe again. I love Asia, but there is something so romantic about watercolor painting in France. You are going to be obsessed. The trip is also very inclusive of dietary restrictions, so if that's something that's of concern to you, we will have a private chef, can you believe, and they will accommodate to your restrictions. So if you want that quintessential artist experience that we all romanticize, where all you have to do for the day is relax and eat some good food, drink some wine, hang out in beautiful nature, you are going to be obsessed, so I really hope that you can join. I also have launched my trip to Mexico City. There are only five spots left for that one, so if you're interested in Mexico City, you can also check that out. It's going to be linked down in the description. That's basically what I've been doing, my watercolor course and my retreats. When it comes to my art goals, I have really been developing my style when it comes to watercolors and alcohol markers. Creating my watercolor course, I've really been trying to analyze my watercolor process and the very specific steps of my process, and I've also really been enjoying working with alcohol markers. They are very convenient for the retreats because walking around a city, getting 20,000 steps, and then pulling out your watercolor palette to paint on the fly is kind of difficult, but that's to say that I've been loving alcohol markers. I think they're great and they are really fun and easy to work with, but I've also started to incorporate acrylic markers into my painting style for both watercolors and alcohol markers, and this is really new to my process. I'm doing it in this painting, but this has just been over the past couple of weeks, and honestly, I started doing it on my retreat to Korea because I needed to fix something in my sketchbook. I just didn't like the colors that I had used, and I had brought acrylic markers to split up into the group because I didn't really use them, and so I was using them a little bit before the retreat, before I gave them out, and I really liked the effect that they created in my sketchbook, so since then, I have been kind of trying them out for the past two months, so I think they're really fun. In my watercolor pieces, I used gouache or gel pens to get some opaque white highlights or white paint, but the acrylic markers are just so much more convenient, so if you already have them, I would try them out for those finishing touches, but if you don't own them and you don't know if you would like them, if you already own gouache or acrylic paint, I don't think you need to get them unless you love using gouache and love using acrylic paint to begin with, but I have been really enjoying them. I haven't been using the acrylic markers solo, but they've been so good for my finishing touches. I've added acrylic markers into my process, and then lastly, when it comes to work, I reorganized my studio space to have an art desk and a computer desk, which has been really nice for being able to leave out my art supplies. It makes it easier to not have to put away all of the art supplies and the work that I'm working on every time I need to do computer work, which is every single day, so right now, I'm sitting in my computer desk because I'm editing, and I am able to have all of my art supplies sort of strewn on the other desk. I already had this desk in this space, but it was just holding my laser engraver, so I ended up getting a huge shelf for my laser engraver and my printers, and moved this desk over so I could create a little computer desk setup, which is really nice. In my free time, I've been trying to be a little bit artsy. I recently, just this June, it was my friend's birthday, and so I created a little children's book for him, and they loved it. I worked really hard on it, so I've been trying to keep creative, maybe make art outside of just work. I've also been cooking a lot, like always, but maybe more specifically, I've been making more Romanian foods. There's a lot of recipes that I ate when I was a kid that I remember, you know, and love. When I went to Romania last year, I had so many delicious things, oh my god, and then Zach was able to also try out a bunch of traditional foods, and he loved so many of them, which is great, because growing up, I was like a little bit insecure about eating my Eastern European food, and everybody had like hot dogs, you know, and lasagna. So yeah, I love my Romanian food, and it's been cool to learn these recipes for myself. And what else have I been doing? I've been playing some video games. If you know, I love Infinity Nikki, but I'm not gonna lie, I fell off of it a little bit with the travel. I've also been playing Cult of the Lamb. I've totally beaten the game, but I'm working through the Wolhaven DLC right now, and taking my time. It's a little bit more challenging with winter happening every other day, but it's still so fun. I'm addicted to that game, and I've also just been watching Love Island UK and keeping up with it. I'm obsessed. If you know anything about me, I freaking love Love Island UK. Once the season is done, I think I'm gonna go in and watch US, but I just think they're different. I mean, I've watched a little bit of US, and if you know, you know. UK is just so fascinating, but it's been a really good season so far. Everybody's being very respectful, lots of girls girls, so there's a lot more drama when it comes to people being like, I want to kiss you. I'm talking about kissing you, but I'm not going to do it. Like lots of asking for permission and lots of denying permission, but yeah, that's been really interesting because the other Love Island seasons have been so messy, but it's not been that messy. It's just been pretty dramatic, which has been fun, so I'm excited to keep watching Love Island. That's really my day-to-day. If you haven't seen my videos pop up on your feed for a while and you totally forgot about me, I am still regularly posting on Instagram and sometimes on TikTok, so feel free to follow me there if you want to see the artwork that I'm creating and to see, you know, more of my day-to-day because I haven't been posting so much here on YouTube, but I do hope to continue sharing some of my painting processes with you, my drawing processes. If you have any, you know, requests or suggestions, let me know. Anyway, thank you so much for watching and sort of catching up with me. Let me know how you're doing, what you've been up to, and let me know what you think of this painting process. I do really love it. I love the colors that I used and sort of the theme of them. If you have any requests for what I should draw next, let me know. I'm always running out of ideas and that could help me a lot, honestly, so if you have requests for my next subject matter, let me know, but thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed it, feel free to give me a thumbs up and subscribe for more videos, and I will talk to you in the next one. Bye!