I felt like tinkering with jewelry today because painting takes more brain power than I cared to use. They are both sterling silver with gemstones. On the left, the bottom beads are topaz and the top are ametrine. On the right I’m not sure what the top beads are, they came from an assorted bead dish, but the bottom is coral. It’s kind of nuts how long I will spend picking out the beads and then making them. Productivity is definitely not the goal.

Close up

Close up

Close up

Before I painted this, I drew it in black ink.

close ups

close ups

Here is the butterfly.

I like how friendly the bear looks. You can see the fur is purple and gold.

I was a bit worried about the grass, but I think it turned out okay in the end. You can also see some of the fur tones in this close up too.

I was asked to paint whatever I wanted for this one. It is somewhat inspired by the fact that when my friend went to Africa a couple years ago she came home to find out that most of her photos were lost. I don’t know if she saw elephants or yellow, orange and purple sunsets, but as I mentioned, it’s only somewhat inspired by that.

I am painting other Christmas presents this month, but I probably won’t post them until after Christmas.

Close ups 

New paper

I used some new paper I have never used before for this one. I bought an Arches Watercolor Block and I think I love it now. It’s great paper that can really stand up to lots of washes of color, which means they can be really saturated and bright if you want them to. You can see from these scans that the colors are pretty bright. It took quite a few passes with the same colors to make that happen.

I have had some trouble with my paper starting to disintegrate by the time I am finishing up on the cheaper stuff. This is pretty expensive for watercolor paper at about $1.40 a sheet for 12″x9″ but it’s well worth it.

With a watercolor block they all come glued together in a stack and you have to cut the finished piece off with a razor blade which is sort of scary. But, the benefits outweigh the fear of slicing through a finished picture.

I haven’t tried any frisket (masking liquid) on it yet, but if it can hold up to that being painted on and rubbed off I will be even more happy.

Close Ups

Idea Progression

Sometimes my ideas start with a quick sketch like this. Sometimes they don’t.

When Crisin was here visiting over the weekend, I painted this 3.5″x2.5″ watercolor based on the sketch. When I was done she suggested I put a top hat on the worm thing. I liked that so much I decided to explore the idea with snakes.

This is 7″x5″ watercolor and ink. I may look at this again in a couple days and add some very minor finishing touches. I can’t look at it any more today though.

Here are a couple close ups.