I've been doing a lot of drawing lately and have been putting to use my Caran D'Ache Neo Color Crayons.  They go down nicely on drawing paper and  a water brush they blend smoothly.

 

Little Maddie

 

I love looking at baby pictures of Maddie.  She was such a cute puppy, but she has grown up, but she will always be my Little Maddie.

 

Caran D'Ache Neo Color Crayons on drawing paper.

 

 

 

 

 

Calla Lilies

It's getting to be that time of year when I see lots of Calla Lilies growing everywhere.  When I see them, it makes me think about my mother who loved Calla Lilies in many colors.

 

Caran D'ache Neo color crayons on drawing paper.

Daylily

Daylily in gouache and acrylic paint.

 

 

 

 

Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve

 We had another wonderful weekend of 80's weather.  So off to Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve so my husband could take photo's while I kept myself busy painting little landscapes of the poppies.

 

 

 

Lions resting

 

I have a lot of art supplies and I always forget about my Caran d'Ache  watercolor crayons.  So when I'm under the weather I like to go through my zoo photo's and pick out something to draw that I can do while resting in bed.  Caran d' Ache are so portable and easy to lay down and with a wet watercolor brush I'm able to blend the color.  The only thing I didn't like was I had to wait for each layer to dry before moving onto more detail.

 

 

 

Black and white puppy

 

This is the last page in my 6" x 6"  drawing/watercolor journal.  The first 12 pages of the journal have drawing paper, which I used to render ink drawings.  The last 4 pages, I had watercolor paper and did 4 small watercolor paintings.  I think I like working with combination of drawing and watercolor paper.

 

For this puppy painting I used ink for the face and body and then went back in with a wet brush to move the ink around. I finished the painting off with watercolor paint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elephant

Today I painted elephants in one color.  I choose Sepia watercolor to render a side view of the elephant.  I painted directly on the watercolor paper without drawing the elephant first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve

 
 


Today was a nice warm sunny day for an outing to the Antelope Poppy Reserve. 

I did a quick 5 minute watercolor and my husband took pictures of Jolie seating in the poppy field. 

We also visited my husbands work site, so Jolie could play chess.  A good time was had by all.

Daffodils

Today when I was out and about, I spotted daffodils at the local florist.  I decided to buy a bunch and come home and paint them.

 

I wet my watercolor paper first and then dropped in yellow watercolor for the bud.  For the stem I dropped in a mixture of greens and blues.  I let the paint dry before I went to my next step.  Once the surface was dry on my painting, I started to define the daffodil flower...adding more yellow and dropping in some oranges.  I kept on dropping in paint, letting it move around the surface to give the painting a defused look.

 

This painting was created on 6" x 6" watercolor paper, using water brushes filled with watercolor paint.

 

 

 

Recycled Hawk

I don't know about you, but I tend to go through a lot of watercolor paper that comes in watercolor pads.  I try to recycle the book board that's in the back of the pad, but I thought I do something with the front cover of the watercolor pad.  My solution was to glue two pieces of front cover together, white on the outside and pad design on the inside, hence, giving me a front and back to paint on.  Because the white side of the cover has texture, it adds to the look of the painting or drawing I've created.

 

With this found paper I plan to use for experimenting techniques trying new supplies without having to use good paper.

 

So with this painting I used water brushes filled with watercolor to create this scary looking Hawk.  I liked the way the texture of the paper enhanced the birds feathers.

 

 

Credit card trees

I made a new journal that measures 12" by 4.5" using 140lb watercolor paper.  I'm calling it my tree journal because that is all that I'll be painting in this journal.

For my first illustration, I used a credit card dipped in watercolor paint and scrapped out the trunk of the tree using the side of the credit card.  I had to run the credit card a couple of times to create the tree trunk making sure I left some white of the watercolor paper showing.  Once the tree trunks were dry, I then started to add the tree foliage. I made sure that the tree foliage  was dry before I started tweaking the painting.

A view of the ocean

 

You know when I start to paint ocean scenes from my imagination, it's time for me to go to the beach for a visit.  Hopefully, if we get nice weather this weekend that's where I'm heading.