No Grandma Moses

As you can see, I am no budding Grandma Moses. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that watercolor will not be my specialty. But I am nothing if not stubborn. Believe it or not, it is very similar to the use of colored pencils, of which I am also not a great fan. Exactly for that reason, I just keep plugging away. I don’t think I like “exact” things. I love charcoal and pastels and graphite because they are very forgiving. You can smudge and smear and blur and still have a great effect. If you work too hard on colored pencils you bore a hole in your paper. (I am famous for having a heavy hand!) With water colors you just get a mess. Things tend to run. Also I am having a hard time mixing colors. I just can’t get the tones I want. So much to learn and such a little bitty brain!

Here are some of my latest efforts. The daisies were surprisingly easy. The boat was hard, but then I didn’t enjoy drawing a boat! Since I love flowers, I tried the tulip. It may look easy, but it was days of work, layer after layer of colors. I know I got the shadow too big on the flower, but that was because of a bleed – too much water on my brush.

If I ever get completely over my sinus infection, I’ll go back to doing pastels – with a dust mask, but I just don’t want to risk it right now. I bought a couple of great books the other day at the mall, so I am doing research on the subject right now. I also plan to do some more study on color theory. In the meantime, I have to work on some writing projects, so my paints will dry for a few days. Right now it’s time to go do my Leslie Sansone walking DVD. Three miles today!!!!