Herons

Here's a small watercolor sketch that actually led to bigger paintings.


My first try wasn't quite what I'd imagined. That's typical with my watercolors - I need to keep redoing them to work out the colors.
It was my first time doing such a large watercolor; I used a full sheet - 22" x 30".

I was happier with this version because there was a bigger range of tones - both lights and darks.

Red Riding Wolf

I tried variations on this theme for weeks of painting. The final version is above. Those below - and I did several trials of each - led up to the final.

Florida - studies

Three tiny watercolor studies from photos we took in Florida in 2007. Each is about 2" wide. I call them studies, because they were quick sketches, but I didn't ever do more with them.

When I lived in California I went to as many fairs where people were in costume as I could. It was a great opportunity to take pictures of interesting faces without raising questions. This man was at a Charles Dickens event before Christmas, and even though everyone was dressed for winter festivities it was probably in the 90s that day.

Musical cats

My cats posed for this picture - they're all poses of sleeping - the open eyes show the skepticism they expressed as I hovered over them with the camera.

Geese

My husband's uncle kept geese and my mother-in-law sent me in to feed them one day. I had no idea they could be mean. She did, though, and watched from a distance, laughing as I was chased out of the pen.
I learned. About both: geese and my mother-in-law (who I do like, but I keep my eyes open now). These sketches are of those geese. From outside the fence.
The linocut is made from the sketches. I use Safety-Kut because it's easier to work.

Jill

hummingbirds

Two watercolors from the same photo. Two different treatments.
My friend, Steve, takes beautiful photos of birds.

On the farm

In pen and ink with watercolor.

Martin

I forgot to mention in my last post that I'm veering slightly from the "beasts" part of my blog title so that I can include lots of illustrations I've done. Maybe I should have called it mostly beasts.

I wonder if I could find every illustrator's family in their drawings if I knew where to look.
These are my husband. Posted without his permission - well, without asking first.

Grandpa

My grandfather was very handsome when he was young. This is a watery watercolor I did from a photo I found. I wish I could always see such strong contrasts in faces and model them with shadows.

This is a linocut. I don't have a photo of him pouring tea for a frog, so I must have used one of him looking down as reference.

Tigers

These tigers are from a time when I was trying out what I could do with colored pencils. White pencil on brown paper made me think differently about drawing - the brown was already a color to work with...or around. I made a note on the first tiger drawing shown that it took me three hours to do. It takes lots of careful and small strokes for me to get the texture I want with colored pencil. I'm not very good at laying out a drawing in advance - I like to get going and then see how things turn out, but it was hard to put ten or more hours into a piece before I realized that my proportions looked kooky.

Red and green

More pencil drawings with watercolor backgrounds.

Meerkats

While I was looking at the sketches I've done of meerkats I was trying to remember why I did them. I can't keep saying "I just love (name of animal here)". Probably with most animals I want to draw them because I like their facial expression. They look cranky or serious or happy.
Meerkats are so busy and curious and to me they look like they're having a good time. They're very social, and I like to see them sleeping in a big pile. A lot of times they are interested in zoo visitors - I bet they get fed a lot of snacks when no one is looking.
I did some meerkat signage for the Muenster Zoo - just the ideas and layout suggestions, not the illustration.


The sign asks if you have what it takes to be a meerkat.

Gulls

I did two paintings from a photo of a gull in Florida. The first is in pastel on Hahnemühle Velour Board (So fuzzy. I find it hard (and annoying) to get a crisp line - although I've seen plenty of other people do it).

The second is a watercolor. In upcoming posts I'll show an example of how many paintings I do until I get something I'm satisfied with. For this gull I think I watercolored him four or five times before I was satisfied.


Also, I'm not sure I've said this before, but although I usually work from photos I do a lot of sketching from life. I just never find it easy to use only the sketches for reference when I'm ready to do a realistic finished drawing or painting.