Two New Watercolor Paintings

The watercolor marathon continues...only one painting left that I am still working on at present.  Here are the latest two that I finished today.

The first is of a workman's cottage in New Zealand, drawn by Karlyn Holman.  It has black ink and watercolor on Arches 140-lb. Cold Press paper.

This one was very fun to paint.  I used Karlyn's companion DVD to her book Watercolor Without Boundaries.  The focus of this lesson was to frame a picture with foliage.  Most of the leaves and flowers were created by "throwing" paint with a Chinese squirrel-hair paintbrush.  The problem with these book lessons is that she teaches the main technique, then leaves you kind of dangling about how to finish.  I did not purchase the whole kit with the step-out instructions, just the drawing.  The book and DVD don't tell you how to do the roof, chimney, or windows.

The second one I finished uses the same technique of throwing paint to create foliage.  This one is a door in Europe.  Karlyn teaches painting on site all over the world.  I would dearly love to go with her on location and spend a week learning to paint with her at my side.  Maybe I will start saving up for a trip to France next year!

I love the warm color of the doors, which I achieved by layering first blue, then orange, then many more layers of gold and orange.  They have a nice glow!

I also loved creating the terra cotta pots of geraniums.  Very loose but effective, I think!

The last painting is an autumn woods scene which has at least one more step before it is complete.  I am supposed to run it under the faucet!  We will see what happens!

As I have been painting, I have kept my Moleskine journal close by.  When there is a lot of paint left on the palette, I have been applying color to journal pages for future backgrounds.  I started working on one of these today.  The background looked like this.

I was reading the blog of The Sketchbook Challenge, and saw a tutorial by Diana Trout that I thought I might adapt for this background.

I made the rock shapes, but for texture I doodled in some Zentangle designs.  I have found a few magazine words and glued them in.  Now I need to decide how to finish it.  I like all the texture and color on the page so far.

Charlie is ready to reclaim the kitchen table to eat on, so I will probably put the art studio back in its tote bag after tomorrow.  I am going to an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in feet tomorrow.  I hope I will learn how to rehabilitate this sprained ankle.  Every time I think it is getting better, I have a little setback.  I probably have not been patient enough to let time do its work.  But it is much better than a week ago!