Trees

Lemon Branch

Art, Pencil, Watercolor
LemonBranch_web_lowres

Lemon Branch, watercolor, graphite & colored pencil on bristol, 14 in. x 11 in. 

Here it is, the last citrus branch in the series. This took probably about 12 hours or more- worked sporadically over a week and a half. I prefer to create projects for myself that can be completed in a day or two. Much longer than that and drawings start to become “that thing I need to finish.” And that’s usually a recipe for procrastination. But last night I hunkered down with new episodes of House of Cards and finished up the final leaves.  I’ve got all three in my Etsy shop and here’s how they look next to each other:

Snazz.

Limes on a branch

Art, Pencil, Watercolor
LimeBranch_web_lowres

Lime Branch, watercolor, graphite and colored pencil on bristol, 14 in. x 11 in. 

There was no Watercolor Wednesday this week because of [excuses]. I did, however, finish the second of three citrus branch paintings. I’ve been making these while watching episodes of Justified, so looking at them makes me talk in a Kentucky accent.

 

 

Park day

Pen & Ink, Sketches, Urban Sketches, Watercolor

Last weekend we needed to go grocery shopping, so naturally, we started out at the park. My baby slept while I drew and painted this tree. Some old lady came by with her 1 and a half year old charge to oogle at the baby. Then the 1 and half year old hit my baby in the face with a sandy hand… “No, no, child! You can’t talk to the baby if you hit!” She then allowed the kid to come back by (all the while, INTERRUPTING my brief moment of silent sustained drawing, SSD) so that the girl could whack my baby several more times*. She also had a dog tied to a tree that barked and snarled at all canine passersby. The dog got similar smiling, soft-toned scoldings. “No, no, Freckles! You silly animal, that dog is twice your size!”

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*My baby was not harmed in the making of this drawing. If he had been in real danger I would surely have stopped drawing and laid a smack down on the old lady.

It’s beauts! :)

Pencil, Sketches, Urban Sketches

I decided to pick up Randy from work last Friday in San Francisco so that we could all enjoy a lovely afternoon in the City together. Then I realized as I crossed the beautiful brand new Bay Bridge that it is Friday and we will have to leave in 30 minutes if we want to avoid the hellscape that is Friday afternoon traffic heading out of San Francisco.

So, we hung out at Chrissy Field for five minutes then loaded everybody back into the van to at least cross the Golden Gate before it got real bad. We got out again at Fort Baker and delighted at the views of the bridge, the bay and the city. I drew this picture of what you see if you turn your back on all those iconic subjects and face North. Then a pack of some 20 something girls parked their car in front of me and, while commenting how “beauts” the day/scenery was, went for a nice walk down by the marina. “Whatevs,” I said. “I was almost done anyway.”

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Watercolor tree practice

Watercolor

I have a tough time painting foliage in watercolor. I never quite know how to deal with a bush or tree branch in my paintings of buildings and I completely steer clear of doing landscapes. The wet-on-wet technique is foreign to me so I decided that I need to work on it. I checked out a book from the library on trees and did a couple quick paintings today.

This first tree was boring and flat, so I added some India ink. It helped a bit- makes it more illustrator-ly, but it’s a look I like.

My son got hold of the bottle and unscrewed it just before I snatched it away! Fortunately it wasn’t a HUGE mess, but we did get a nice couple splotches on both the paintings. Meh, they weren’t masterpieces anyway and I kind of like it.

This second was more of an exercise for wet-on-wet. Still lacking depth, but I like using oranges.

Practice makes perfect! Eventually.