Tag Archives: pen sketch

Day 15 and 18 of 30×30 Watercolor

This one started out looking like a loaf of bread overlooking the ocean.

I walked away from it after sharing it with my Aunt with my “meh” analysis.

She suggested I deepen the shadows as a starting point to make it into something else. And she thought it had a Daliesque feeling in need of an idiosyncratic foreground object or character. Her suggestion was a snowman.

Deepening the color of the ocean and the shadow on the “loaf” made the page more substantial, but I’ve never had great lucky painting something white over color. Nothing quite like a hooded figure to keep a person wondering.

I think I might be the hooded figure…waiting and watching for something.

Day 18 of 30×30 Watercolors

This morning I ate and painted the rainbow for breakfast. This was watercolor, pen, and watercolor touch-up.

I took a reference photo because I wanted to eat my sandwich before it got cold.

That’s a spinach and cheese egg sandwich…a bit bland this morning because I forgot the salt and pepper. I didn’t suffer much.

Day 5 of 30×30…a Confession

Watercolor was applied to paper yesterday but pen had gotten there first.

The husband of a close friend saw a similar piece I’d done and asked if he could commission me to do one of a similar theme for their kitchen…a place where he has cooked many delicious meals and I have been invited to join them. The answer was, of course, yes.

On Labor Day a labor of loving friendship…

August 1: Breakfast

Next month my aunt and I have pencilled in our calendars to do the World Watercolor Challenge (Doodlewash, a.k.a. Charlie O’Shields) which usually happens in July.

I will be working waaaaay outside my comfort zone because I rarely work with watercolor first. My aunt can paint circles around me. Back in the day she was a double major in college…art and physics.

Anyhoo, I’m giving myself a warm-up month since I’m the underdog. Not that this is a competition—not with my aunt.

Here’s the watercolor start…

Fruit for breakfast.

Working watercolor first and trying to capture any detail is very new to me. Dilution of the paint, the brush strokes (or points for blackberries) needed to create texture, and line work (the thin skin of the peach sections) were all new to me.

I’m accustomed to “coloring” with watercolor. There is a dissatisfying mount of white still in the background, but I was trying not to let one paint bleed into another.

I think I’m going to have to take this challenge to my mixed media sketchbook so I can work longer. Love my Moleskine, but my calendar just doesn’t have the paper for this.

And then I made it a good muddy mess when I added a little pen and tried to anchor the glass bowl with a table background.

1 down, 30 to go.

Tomorrow’s word: popsicle.

Now I want a popsicle. I only had fruit for breakfast after all.