Watercolor of wine grapes

A friend of mine had a birthday coming up and one of the things he loves is vineyards, grapes, anything to do with wine. And it's that time of year...Crush! I had seen a painting at an art studio a while back that inspired me to create something similar. With the help of Google Images, I had an image as a starting point and went from there.

Since this was going to be a framed piece, I actually worked backwards so it would fit in an existing 11x14 frame I had with a 1/4 inch border since it did not have a mat. With a little measuring and remeasuring (Why do they make 11x14 sized pads of paper 11x15?) I got the painters tape laid out for the correct size painting. I usually work outside but since I was inside, I had to pull out the blow dryer several times just to get the paint to dry so I could move on...waiting for paint to dry if not one of my strengths!

Here is the finished piece, framed and ready to go!

Practicing Portrait Painting at Patris Studio

It's been a long time since I've done a portrait with watercolor. Patris Art Studio offers a model to draw each 2nd Saturday and I hadn't been there since i did model painting in January. The most challenging part of this was finding a good flesh tone. I started with her left arm, but it was way too jaundice looking.  So I adjusted it and tried the other arm which was much closer to her coloring. Of course after mixing yellow, red, and a couple other washes I had on my palette, I don't know if I could recreate it.
The 3/4 face view is the most challenging for me so I made sure that I set up my easel in the perfect spot. It turned out pretty good, but it is very stiff. I definitly will need to keep working on loosening up.