Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.
~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca
I’ve always been a list maker and a collector. While playing with my watercolors it only made sense (at least in my head) to combine a drawing with a quote that I’ve saved in one of my lists.
Sometimes it’s easier to start with a quote and create the image that comes to mind. In this case I painted a heart and found an appropriate quote.
Playing with my watercolors has been fun, capturing my RV and beloved mountains. I wanted to push a little further, however, to work on a more involved image. What better challenge than one of my most common (and favorite) sights – Ashley riding her bicycle. For the most part, I am quite pleased with the results, though working with a fluid medium in an uncontrolled manner did mean that Ashley appears to be riding with an antenna.
After capturing my RV in watercolor, I played with the technique further. At the time, I was in the flatlands of Florida. But since I love mountains, they seemed like a great subject to play with. And these guys turned out pretty well.
Prints, pillows, and more available here.
Playing with a new technique, I decided to use the most obvious subject available to me. The first thing that jumped out at me was my RV, parked right in front of me. And so, that’s what I painted. This is the silhouette of the front of my home. Hope you enjoy!
I’ve been having fun playing with my watercolors, and decided to try a new type of project. While I have a comfortable grasp on drawing portraits, I haven’t spent much time adding color to them.
While my sis-n-law was visiting and trying on a hat that I crocheted, I snapped a quick photo of her. Currently in the middle of re-reading the Harry Potter books, it occurred to me that the image would make a great illustration of a witch.
I quickly sketched her out and added some color to the sketch. Definitely not my best drawing, but as a proof-of-concept for a new-ish style and the addition of color, it worked fairly well.
After years of practice capturing every detail and trying to draw realistic images, I am trying to develop a looser, sketchy style. I love the zig-zags in the hat and the wrinkles in the bottom right corner of the shirts, so I’m making progress.
A fun experiment, one well worth repeating.
I’ve always loved the intersection of pictures and quotes (the stick figures series is a prime example). So when I stumbled across a new drawing-plus-quotes project while reading a watercolor book, I couldn’t wait to try it!
Not only do I get to peruse my quote collection, but I got to try out a new watercolor technique. Win, win!
The heart and rose are on post-card sized watercolor paper. After finishing the painting I added in the quote with a drawing pen.
Ashley on her bicycle was the first painting that I did in this line. It’s not yet complete, as I haven’t yet added in a fitting quote – though I do have a couple of them picked out. This is a larger work, nearly 8×10″.
Not sure what happened with that “antenna” sprouting up out of Ashley’s head – re-painting the image will give me more practice with the procedure and the materials and hopefully end up more as I intended it. 😀
After leaving Brant’s I headed further west in Texas to visit Big Bend National Park. Even though it was hot (and I’m out of practice with the heat, so it felt pretty miserable) I explored the park for 4 days. Of course, I carried my trusty little moleskine pocket sketchbook everywhere. In addition, on bigger hiking days, I tucked a few sheets of watercolor paper into my daypack and a mini art kit.
On the first day in the park I hiked into the Santa Elena canyon. Tucked in the shade of the cliffs, sitting next to the Rio Grande river, it was nice and cool. I loved taking a few minutes to capture the scene. The cliffs on the right, across the river, are Mexico.
The next day included a hike up to Emory Peak, the highest point in the park. After reaching it and enjoying lunch, I pulled out my watercolors and tried to capture part of the scene before me.
It was hot and humid, so it didn’t take long for my watercolors to dry out. As they did, I pulled out my little sketchbook for this quick render. It’s a zoomed in view of a slightly different angle of the Chisos mountains.
After getting back from the mountains, I zipped around on my motorcycle for a bit more sketching and painting.
The bright buildings in Boquillas, Mexico, really stood out against the natural desert backdrop of the mountains.
I sketched out this fun tunnel that leads down into the Rio Grande Village campground, where we stayed during our visit. Later I’ll go back and add some watercolor to it. On one of the trips out of the valley the timing was perfect and the sunset was highlighted within the tunnel. Of course, that was heading the other way on the road. This direction gives layers of mountains to play with and a big sky above them.
I’ve really been enjoying the gnarly Oaks that are covered with Spanish Moss. While stopped for a couple days, visiting family, I pulled out the watercolors and painted a tree from the back yard. It was pushed over a few years ago in a tropical storm but hasn’t given in yet.
While I spent most of my time in Dry Tortugas sketching, I did complete some watercolors as well.
For the first I sat on the beach and sketched out the nearby lighthouse, with the fort nearby for scale.
With the sketch completed, I tried to capture the amazing colors in the water and the textures of the clouds in the sky. There were pelicans cruising by, scouting for fish.
On the rainy morning, I went up to the second floor and found a comfortable spot looking out a window over the keys. A corner of a fort’s bastion provided an interesting contrast to the organic expanse of the water and keys themselves.
I didn’t actually add any paint until later in the day, but the color of the water was more dramatic with more light so I’m glad that I waited.
9×6″ Ink & Watercolor on sketch paper
I was bored once, then I wondered what there was to do.
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. ~ Dorothy Parker
