Bees and carnations on scrap paper

Doodling on scrap paper for the #30x30DirectWatercolor painting challenge, and I started liking my doodles better than the tulips I was working on. So here's my doodles paper.

Day 9/30 of the direct watercolor painting, which means directly laying down color without prepping with pre-sketching on the canvas. Thus my reason for "practicing" bees on scrap paper.

Surreal Moose

This was kind of a hilarious painting. Laid some orange down on the paper and absentminded put some blue sky beside it and suddenly the paint was dull. Hah! So I went with it. While I planned on having a vibrant orange painting, the shapes that started emerging were quite interesting .... and so no more orange was added, and the mountains took on a surreal wintry look. Added the moose as an afterthought to balance out the empty foreground. Kind of a bizarre surreal look overall but there is harmony in the end product ... although if someone had said I would be painting moose today, I would have laughed :)

Day 8/30 of the #30x30DirectWatercolor daily painting challenge (no pencil lines, just laying color on paper so rather challenging but definitely developmental).

Surreal moose - lol! 

Mandril Watercolor

Day 7 of the #30x30DirectWatercolor2018 painting challenge on Facebook. Had a hard time getting the perspective right without making an undersketching, and then had a miserable time getting the color contrast right. I'm realizing one of my biggest weaknesses is not saving white in the paper. Note to self: remember to retain white to get better contrast!

Mandril - Canson Montval 140lb cold pressed, 18.2 x 25.7cm

Toucan Popping a Berry

Day 6 for the #30x30DirectWatercolor2018 painting challenge. Now this picture painted directly on paper without preliminary lines or undersketching really worked, and I got the colors pretty well too. I am so in love with the Daniel Smith granulating primateks! They really made this picture great!

Toucan popping a berry

Canson Montval 140lb cold pressed, 18.2 x 25.7cm

Horse from the Mist

Day 5 for the #30x30DirectWatercolor2018 painting challenge. It's rather hard but challenging to paint directly, without lines or undersketching. It really helps a person develop ... but if I prefer the undersketching method as I can erase repeatedly until I get the shape and contours I like. And it would be easier to position the objects, case in point, my horse wouldn't be almost standing off the paper. Good development though to practice this way!

Lovely Red Flowers

What a muddle! When I got the flowers painted in, there wasn't enough contrast. Added dark greens and then it was too dark. Added white gouache and then the picture looked weak. More dark touches. A bit more white touches and a white gel pen. Arg! The light picture didn't turn out as I imagined ... but that's learning for you!

This was done for the June #30x30DirectWatercolor2018 June painting challenge on Faebook. My Day 4 entry,. The June painting challenge period has timed out, but I'm just painting what I can and in my own time. The paint-something-daily challenge is a bit of a motivator, now that I have time post-semester.

Day 4 for the June daily painting challenge (yep, it's July but I'm slowly working at my own pace). See #30x30DirectWatercolor2018. This was done using the direct painting method ... no penciling or lines. I did mask directly but that's acceptable since I created those lines directly.

Field Daisies

Field daisies painted as direct watercolor for a painting challenge. Direct watercolor means no pencil marks, tracing or any guide marks. Reference photos are of course permitted. I didn't really have a reference photo for this ... and it shows. Rather messy.  So there are 2 versions for this:

(1) Direct watercolor using a bit of salt for texturing

(2) Incorporating mixed media: outlining the petals with 0.8 Faber Castell Ecco Pigment

I think I prefer the first one without the outlining of petals.

cold pressed Canson Montval 140lbs - 18.2cm x 25.7cm

Day 3/30 for the direct watercolor painting for the month of June painting challenge. So it's no longer June, I still plan to finish as much as I can, especially as July is watercolor month. See #30x30DirectWatercolor2018 on Facebook for my entries and so many other peoples. It's a great learning and development site.