Watercolor of an elephant, photo progression

I had a lot of people like my pencil sketch of an elephant that I decided I should try it in watercolor. Here is a progression of the steps. First, I took the image of the pencil sketched elephant, enlarged it a little, and traced it out with pencil.

Once I had the outline, I put down a background wash.

Then I put in the shadows with blue, mixing in some black for the deep shadows.

I added in some burnt sienna to warm the painting.

Then I added in the details with some black, including eyes, wrinkles, and a few more shadows.  Once I added the shadow on the ground, the elephant became much more "grounded". The last touch was adding in the grass in the foreground and a hint of greenery behind. 

I also improved the lighting that I was using to photograph it. That makes a huge difference, taking it from that yellow to actual white!

Continued work on watercolor clouds

after

As I continue working on this same piece, watercolor clouds, with a little feedback from fellow artists, I have made a few changes.  My shadows within the clouds have become gray instead of blue, creating a much better shadow effect. I have tried to make the lines more random and not so uniformly scalloped.  I have also added a few more secondary shadow levels. It has really improved the realism, but it still comes across as too planned out with the  three even breaks in the clouds, so I will need to start a fresh painting instead of continuing to rework this one.

before

Watercolor Clouds

So I decided to take on a challenge that has always eluded me...clouds. I love watching clouds moving through the sky, whether it's high wispy cirrus clouds or big cotton ball like cumulus clouds...I could watch them  all day, but when it comes to painting them...that's when I struggle.

My inspiration for this piece was a watercolor piece by Charles Cherry titled "Distant Hills and Clouds".
When I started to paint this, I thought I would go outside to be inspired, but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I also noticed that I had no palette to mix colors on. I haven't worked plein air in quite a while so some of my supplies we're sitting on my table at home. I ended up pulling the color right from the tube. I hate doing it for fear I'll contaminate the whole tube, but as you can see, I only used 3 colors total and only mixed colors a little on the paper.
Looking at the finished piece, I needed to use a darker color in the clouds for the shadows. I also need to loosen up my "cloud shape". It looks too uniform and too scalloped. It does not come across as realistic.  Any pointers would be appreciated.

Mandala in colored pencil

I actually started this drawing with a Tupperware lid.  I created the pattern out of  8 circles drawn around a center point.  From there I used colored pencil to create a rainbow effect. For some reason I started with yellow, with a touch of orange in the middle. As an afterthought, I should have started with red and had purple on the outside edge.

Forest of Fir Trees ...revisited

So after taking in lots of advice of how to "finish" this painting Forest of Fir Trees, half said it was already done, while the other half said it needed something more. My gut said it needed more, and that is why I had put it out there. I just didn't know what it needed or what direction to go with it. Setting it down for a while and coming back to it gave me some fresh perspective. I didn't add much since so many people thought it was already done, but just some subtleties to the foreground.

So which on do you like better? (sorry, the lighting was different when taking the pictures)

I don't know how this effect got added...but I lke it!

Ink doodles...zentangles

Just some ransom doodles, the specific process referred to as zen tangles, that we worked on at my Artists' Way group. I have always been a doodler, but this was a fun new way of looking at different patterns, styles, and techniques.

Forest of Fir trees

I started this with the idea of keeping this a simple painting. I wet the whole page, and added a "blob" of blue and then blended some green into the bottom. After than dried I added trees into the foreground...and then I was stuck. Is the painting done? . . .or does it need something else?

Sunrise in the mountains, watercolor landscape

So after my last post, Forest at Dawn, I decided to try keeping the same color blend in the sky. This one though has a combination of detail, in the foreground, and fades to minimal detail as it goes into the background. This specific layout idea was actually given to me by a very creative friend of my daughter's.
I really struggled with the sun, working the watercolor paper too much, and it ended up looking like the sun on a child's drawing. The shadows are more like midday shadows, but other than that, I like the way that it turned out, especially the foreground-- I still love working the details!

Forest at dawn, Watercolor landscape

Just a simple landscape focusing on the color of the sky. I tried to keep the rest of the painting simple, which is challenging to me because I always want to add in some detail. This came completely from the imagination instead of my normal routine of copying someone else's painting or outside painting from nature. At the bottom of the piece, my goal was to fade it out to create the illusion of mist.

Portrait of passion

This is a pencil drawing from a photo. I decided to focus on the lips for this piece since I feel I always have the eyes as my focus.
  As I was working on this, I was reminded of a drawing lesson from long ago...lines don't exist, only areas where dark and light meet.