Girl with bowler hat, portrait practice

Another Saturday afternoon at Patris Gallery and Art Studio practicing portrait painting. I focused on her skin tone as well as leaving the paper white for highlights on the skin and hair. My proportions were a little off but my skin tone is definitely improving...it's a mixture of azo yellow, a little alizarin crimson, and a touch of burnt sienna.

Old man pencil sketch

Just a quick pencil sketch of an old man inspired by an image of a pencil drawing by Akash Patel. After I was finished with it, I kind of thought this might be what I will look like in 40 years...
The portrait practice I've been working on has always been from 20 something models (and female) so no one ever has wrinkles! So this was a good change of pace, even if I didn't have a model to work from.

Watercolor of an owl

After taking the "what animal are you" personality test that was on Facebook last week, I decided to continue my series of animal paintings. My animal was the owl. What does that say about me? I am wise?...I stay up late?...I hang out by myself?... I don't know. Anyways, with some help from Google Images, I created this owl. It started out a little "cartoony" but I think I was able to bring it to a point somewhere between cartoony and realistic that I will call artistic! I tried several different techniques to get a sense of texture for the feathers, and at some point I just splattered some paint on for the fun of it. And so I present to you " Mr. Personality"!

Watercolor of a zebra

This painting was inspired by Paul Jackson's "Zebra Bust".  It's definitely a test of a steady hand with each of the stripes. The ear is the only area I had trouble figuring out. I'm glad I chose just to do the head. I can't imagine taking on a whole body of stripes!

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.