Watercolor Pumpkin Card

It's been a goal of mine for quite some time to send out more snail mail. When I found out that a good friend of mine, whose birthday happens to be this this week, loves pumpkins, it was the perfect opportunity. To celebrate her birthday and our mutual love of pumpkins, I made her my very first water color card. I folded an 11in x 15in watercolor paper in half and started painting away.

These pumpkins were created with a number of washes each...way more than I expected to use. I wanted to get a vibrant color, but I haven't quite figured how to achieve it and blend in properly at the same time. Fortunately, it's fun to practice.

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins

I'm determined to figure out how to watercolor pumpkins in a variety of styles. Today, I focused on the orange washes, with a hint of yellow wash from the top down. I skipped the dots and went with wonky lines. I love irregularly shaped pumpkins, so I like the version on the right the best.

More Watercolor Pumpkins

I painted three more watercolor pumpkins today. In the 1st pumpkin, I tried using different colors (yellow, green & orange) to create depth. In the 2nd and 3rd pumpkins, I was trying to get different shades of orange and add a little depth with the dots. I still have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm loving the process of learning.

Watercolor Pumpkins

I love pumpkins and with fall on the way, I decided to give watercoloring a few a try. I quickly made these three on my lunch break. I'm not exactly sure about where the proper shading is supposed to go, but I love the curly stems and little dots.

On a side note - I usually take my photos at night and I'm having difficulty take a good quality photo without harsh shadows from the overhead lights on my paintings. I need to figure out a better solution.

Wet into Dry Watercolor Squares

The second project in Heather Smith Jones' Water Paper Paint was working watercolors with the wet into dry technique. (You can check out project 1 in an earlier blog post.) In this project, we created color squares of all shapes, while learning how to mix the paints with each other.

It was amazing to see how many colors you can actually make with just the basic set. I was using Winsor & Newton's Travel Watercolor set. My squares are not perfectly shaped, but I'm slowly getting the feel of the different brushes. While this isn't a large painting, it took me forever to make. I'm finding that watercolor painting is relaxing and easy to get absorbed in. I'm already terrible at keeping track of time and it whizzes by when I'm painting.

Wet into Wet Watercolors

Tonight I started my watercolor explorations with Heather Smith Jones' Water Paper Paint book, which I mentioned in an earlier blog post. The first project is Wet into Wet, where you paint rather wet circles and then paint additional circles with other colors inside - all while the paints are still wet.

I was definitely surprised at how some of the colors reacted with each other and how the paints in the pan can look so different on the paper. I really loved Intense Blue, Viridian Hue and Cadmium Yellow Hue...those three colors, coincidentally, go great together as well!

I originally didn't think the wet on wet process would be a style I was interested in, but it was actually pretty cool to watch the colors spread through one another - they looked like crystals growing! This would be a great technique for wrapping paper or simple cards.

Colored Pencil Shaving Relaxation

Not only are colored pencil shaving so pretty, but twisting the pencils through the sharpener is somewhat relaxing.

Drawing Jill Bliss Style

First drawing of a leaf.

Original Leaf

First drawing of a flower - the yellow pen is a little hard to see.

Original Flower

First contour drawing of a flower.

I love the drawing style of Jill Bliss - she focuses on drawing flowers and other nature elements with lots of little lines, dots and other patterns. A while back I purchased her Drawing Nature: A Journal and have decided to finally start using it.

The first drawing is intended to get you to just draw a simple leaf and/or flower to get your baseline to look back at later. I drew a leaf and yellow flower from the park by my work.

Next, you move onto the first exercise: flower contour drawing. Considering I wasn't allowed to look at the page or lift my pen, it turned out not too bad. Jill recommends you spend an hour on your contour drawing - I only spent about ten minutes. I did this on my lunch break, so I didn't quite have the luxury of time. I definitely plan to spend more time on my next contour drawing to really practice looking at my subject.

Macro Monday: Los Gatos Creek Trail

During an evening walk in the Los Gatos Creek Trail, I stumbled across this pretty little Statice plant along the edge of the trail. I love the papery texture of the flowers.

Hearst Castle: Travel Photography

While in Cambria we visited Hearst Castle. The grounds had beautiful flowers and gardens, all of which will be great inspiration.

Cambria Pines Nursery: Garden Photography

Even the Cambria Pines Nursery is too darn cute not to take more garden photos at. They have adorable displays within the nursery and amazing flower beds around the perimeter. We were only here for about 15 minutes, so I had to be quick with my snapshots. I decided to stay away from my usual macro type shots, as those require time and patience without a tripod to ensure you get crisp photos.

I'm definitely making the birdbath display in my future garden!

Cambria Pines Lodge: Garden Photography

In addition to taking macro photos in the Cambria Pines Lodge gardens with my medium camera, I also took more compostie photos of the gardens. I worked to include diagonal and curving lines, pattern and not trying to include everything in the shot. I did take some landscape photos to capture an entire garden section, but with stark light and shadow areas they need some touch up in Photoshop. 

I love these gardens - I definitely want to go back and spend more time taking photos here.

Macro Monday: Cambria Pines Lodge Flowers

I recently stayed at the Cambria Pines Lodge and they have an assortment of beautiful, tucked away gardens. I spent a bit of time with my medium camera going around taking photos only to find out that the dials had been moved and all the photos were blown out. It was such a bright day that I had thought I just couldn't see the screen properly. Note to self - always check the setting before starting a photo shoot!

After properly adjusting the camera settings, I went around with lightning speed to try to capture some photos worth keeping. These are a few of the macro photos I took. I did not have a tripod on me, so I took many more photos than were in crisp focus.

Learning to Watercolor

I'm officially going to teach myself how to watercolor - hooray! I've been wanting to do this for a number of years, but I'm finally putting a plan into motion. I've ordered a set of Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolor brushes and plan to follow the projects in Heather Smith Jones' Water Paper Paint book. Usually art books spend an extra long amount of time working on the tedious details, but Heather's book delves right into fun projects. I've got paper and some watercolor paints that have been given to me, so it's almost time to start. I can't wait!

Rose Illustration

Over the past few weeks, I've been taking a beginning drawing class at the local community center - basically, it has been boring and tedious. Tonight I thought I would draw something fun and went with the rose from my previous post. The illustration is not yet complete (it needs much more shading), but this took me forever as it was. It's definitely no replica of the photo, but it's probably my best drawing (considering I do not draw).