This is my first watercolor in 19 years. This is not very good, way too detailed and not in the spirit of water colors, but I still enjoyed making it, and thats the key. Click on any image to see a larger version

I did a bit more research, practiced some. Did have one failure I will not even post in this blog. I do not do very well at making up a painting without my subject in hard copy. I cannot reproduce whats in my mind. I guess I need alot more practice. So this try I used a photo from a trip we took to Kauai.

I think that art might run in my husband's family. His niece drew this for him. I think it shows lots of promise. She just turned 5.

Ok, back to business, this is a smaller finished colored pencil piece. I have a nice large piece, but its way to big to scan. Again, I did not like this medium, it was very toothy looking on the paper. Now perhaps I can get a very smooth facing paper to work on. There's never an end to the possibilities

Before I progressed on to colored pencils, I had started with Pencil and charcoal. I tend to have a hard time thinking of things I want for christmas so many years ago I started asking for various art supplies, this was my first year in which I asked for drawing supplies and I got a nice selection of pencils, pads, erasers etc. to explore.

The year I asked for drawing supplies, I also got a package of charcoals of varying types. This was a messy medium, I did some fun experiments, and this one piece came out pretty nice. I had my husband give me something to draw. This is a copy of some ad from a Gaming magazine. I apologize for copying, but remember I don't do well when trying to work from memory. I also feel that if I find something to try, its in my comfort zone, so I like to have my family and friends give me subjects to tackle...

Inspired by completion of the War of the Spider Queen series of books, I painted a drow portait. The technique I was practicing was color blocking rather than feathering or blending the lights and darks.

I did this in 2003. We took a short trip to the Grand canyon. On afternoon we drove out and hiked to the rim. I sat and drew what I saw. It was very relaxing.

Time for a change of pace, after painting the Drow I felt the urge to paint something "happy" :)

This turned out pretty well, I did this right after the Dahlia. Both were photos from our garden.

I bet the title alone made you look, Not its not a MAC truck stopping. It's a reining horse doing a sliding stop. I was bored at a show in July so I fished through the award pictures from my trainers album. He thought this was a "cool" stop. So while it poured down rain, I painted in the motorhome. I thought it came out very nice.

I wanted to capture the meadows in Yellowstone because I was amazed at how expansive they are. the grass was a very intense yellow and the rivers there are lazy and meandering. I tried to play with a morning scene having the fog in the background just like it was while we were there. The mornings were beautiful.

Last summer (05) I did this painting. It was just not right, I had trouble with the trees and background. After Thanksgiving I made an attempt at fixing it and this is the final product.

From my Big Book of watercolor. I did this practice painting. It was a study in the colors of the desert. Terra cotta and mauve/lavendar. Interesting colors...

I have always loved waves and ocean paintings. For Christmas I got a watercolor book that has a study on the painting of waves. I went through the exercise, painting a similar version of the practice painting and it didnt come out too bad.

More Seascape Practice. The colors came out a bit bright, but I got some good practice with waves crashing on rocks and seagulls, neither of which I have ever painted before.

I did this watercolor to explore one of my favorite art subjects, Forests...I also documented what steps I took to make it, this was an exercise from one of my watercolor books. A few of the tips are my own, as the exercise had some vague steps in it. Read my How To.

Not one to repeat my artistic attempts, I thought it would be interesting to walk through my online tutorial I made for Path in the Forest #1. It was interesting how I did things differently. I am not quite done with this one yet, but wanted to get it posted for comparing the two.

I painted this in Arches National Park at the campground. I was really sick at the start of the trip with a fever and this particular day it was 102 degrees outside, I hid under the awning and painted all day.

I started this painting the same day, but just did the washes for the background. It was not until Christmas 2007 that I finally got back to this piece and finished it. I like the splotchy watercolor effect on the green of these trees better than my first painting.

This is one of my better pieces. I looked up some step by steps on trees and this ended up looking very natural and flow-ey. I like the colors in the trees. In fact that was what the study focused on was mixing the color of the branches for a natural look. I put this in photoshop, cropped a bit off the left side and then deepened the colors even further. I like this painting so much I put it on a bunch of products - shop for them now!