Painting Progress, Custom Palette and more!

Hi peeps, 

I have made some progress on the last painting I shared, so I thought I'd show you how far I've gotten.
I initially had a dark blue background, but it just didn't work for me somehow, so I painted over it with this pastel pink. Which is a really unusual colour for me to use, but I really like it now!
I am nearly there now, just another day or two and I should be finished.
The birds will be black, and I might add some very light flowers in the background, and I also want to add some detail to the petals, but other than that, I think it is close to being done. 

I stepped out of my comfort zone with this one, and really wasn't sure if I was going to like it in the end, or even if I was going to finish it at all, but so far, I am pleasantly surprised. I hope you will like it too!

Here are a few other tidbits I thought you might find interesting. Maybe...

✦CUSTOM WATERCOLOUR PALETTE

I finally got round to making myself a palette with all my favourite watercolour pans.
I've been accumulating tubes of watercolour, and I wanted to get some pans and build myself a little palette with samples of all my colours. I did that, and then narrowed down the colours to the ones I loved and used the most, and got myself a tin box to put them all in, so I could have them all in one easy to access place.
I swatched all the colours, and overlayed a piece of transparent plastic over the swatch paper, with the names of each colour, so that I can keep track of what I use. Which will be particularly useful for Process Videos.
Each pan (I have a mix of half and full pans) has a piece of magnetic sheet glued to the bottom (I bought a pack of magnetic sheets online and cut them to size, then superglued them to the bottom of the pans). This means the pans don't move around when I carry the box, but I can still clean, refill or replace them easily. 

Currently, my favourite brands are Daniel Smith, Qor and Da Vinci watercolours, so there are a few of those in there, more than half courtesy of the wonderful Virginia and her amazing gifts. :)

Now, I have a convenient palette that contains all my favourite colours, that I can use at home or on the go! :)

✦ PODCAST INTERVIEW

I was recently interviewed by Mike Hendley for his art podcast Drawing Inspiration.
I talk about my childhood, Inktober, and various other art topics, so if you'd like to hear me ramble, you can head to the link below :)
Let me know what you think!

 https://drawinginspiration.fm/podcast/episode-11-inktober-and-gouache-with-myriam-tillson/ 

 ✦ INKTOBER

I will have a more detailed, independent post about Inktober later this week, but here's a quick overview of what you can expect in October : 

- The Print of the Month will be of one of my Inktober drawings, which will be the subject of a poll towards the end of the challenge.
- I do plan on creating a booklet this year also, although I would like it to be smaller and more affordable than my previous years this time round. I might include it as a reward for higher tiers in October, but I am not sure yet as that will depend on how much it will cost me to manufacture it, but I will keep you updated. 

- This year, I will be following the official prompts of the challenge, as I am interested in trying to make them fit my style and body of work.
- I will mainly be using brush pens, as I am really enjoying using them for the booklet sketches, and they are more gentle on my wrist and hand than fineliners. I might use fineliners for some details, but I'll try to stick to brush pens.
- I am planning on only using black at this stage, but it is still early, maybe I'll give in to using a little red occasionally, haha!

I am taking it a little more easy this year than previous years, as I have a lot of other work commitments to keep up with also, and I need to be able to relax a little every so often too, but I am excited!
Are any of you thinking of participating?   

  ✦ PENDING REWARDS and BOOKLET ORDERS

Once I am done with the painting above, I have one more painting to do and I will be caught up with July, August, and September rewards, and I'll just need to print everything and send all your rewards off.
I am so sorry for the delay with these, I promise I am working hard on getting everything caught up. I will include a few extra goodies to say thank you to all of you for your patience! <3
Thank you also to all of you who ordered one of my special edition booklets with an original sketch! I have finished the sketches for each order, and will be sending them out this week, unless you also have pending physical rewards, in which case, I will package the rewards with the booklets, and will hopefully be able to send those out during the beginning of October. 

I think that's it for now!

Thank you for reading,
I hope you are all well,
Love, M