Okay, new stuff this time!

I've re-drawn some things from some of my old sketchbooks to use for watercolor practice and here are some of the more successful results. I'm still very uptight with the color, and the little journal I was using for the first two drawings isn't the best quality watercolor paper, I found. For the third one, I used a piece of 300 lb. Arches I found stashed away upstairs from my long-ago efforts. I wish I could make myself a journal with that paper, but I'm afraid it's too heavy for that.

More Old Stuff

I probably shouldn't show these....it was a less than successful attempt in an effort to loosen up my brushwork and deal with watercolor washes. I keep thinking that if I had just kept at it, I might just have learned something by this time!

This one was a bit more successful, but done with colored pencils this time, in an online class with the very talented Angela Jarecki.

Older work

Here are some things I did some time ago. The first was a watercolor study for a small table I was painting.

This one was one of many I did at that time in an effort to gain some insight into painting with watercolor....never did master it, but I'm still trying!

This one I did in a watercolor class at a small local college. It was done from a photgraph and it felt much akin to painting by number!

They're ba-a-a-a-ck

For the first time in 3 years or more, a pair of bluebirds appeared in the yard this past week looking for a nesting place. I called Roy to see them and we hurriedly went out and put up the bluebird house we used in previous years. Within a half hour or less they were checking out the house. An aggressive robin made a valiant effort to chas them away (I never saw an aggressive robin before!) but they persevered and have been carefully surveying the neighborhood to make sure it's safe before building the nest inside. Today they seemed comfortable enough to begin and have been diligently scurrying back and forth with twigs. They build beautifully constructed nests with no leaves or other unrelated materials, just twigs. I do hope that no predators discover them now that they've decided to stay.