Daily Watercolor Sketchbook, Day 6

An apple a day keeps the Dr away, as the saying goes.

We saw it in action when our daughter was little. Apples were one of her favorite foods and she ate one every morning. Sometimes 2! And she was rarely sick.

As in she has only been on antibiotics twice.

I can count her stomach viruses on one hand, and have fingers left over. So I highly recommend that whole apple a day thing!

 

Today’s inktober prompt is Golden, and it is anything but golden outside (back to rain, fog, grey – Again) so I wanted to do this one to bring some sunshine into my day.

Enter the Golden Delicious apple. A beauty though truth be told, not my favorite apple variety.

Gala, Fuji, Honeycrisp are my first choices (red delicious and mcintosh are my least favorites).

 Today I sketched in ink before painting, looking for a variety of loose painted and detailed drawn for contrast and interest.

 My favorite part of this is where some of the yellow apples bleed into the purple shadows.

My colors: lemon yellow, permanent gamboge, permanent scarlet, ultramarine, and dioxazine violet.

My sketchbook is a Canson XL Series Watercolor book, 7x10, 140lb paper

My pens… Micron, 05pt

The text is paraphrased from SpecialtyProduce.com ivory flesh is fine-grained, aqueous and semi-firm with a crisp light tender consistency. They are also prone to bruising. Love the way they are described and makes you want to nurture these little beauties.

Daily Watercolor Sketchbook, Day #4

I am currently working on a large custom house portrait with beautiful and extensive landscaping. One of the dominant landscape features is a very large Rose of Sharon tree, and I have been hesitant to work on it. The house is coming along so beautifully and fear that I might mess up the tree is really holding me back. 

Enter… my daily sketchbook challenge, swooping in like a superhero to save the day! It occurred to me this morning that it’s the best place to play and practice the tree and work out the tricky parts.  And the cute little daffodils blooming beneath it.

Now I am ready.
Well almost…
Still a little trepidation putting color to paper, but readier than I was.
So off I go…with my painted sample to guide me.

Daily Watercolor Sketchbook, Day #2

Facial expressions are hard!

Drawing them while keeping an illustrated character consistent is a real challenge. It takes a ton of practice so today I am using the daily challenge to continue to hone my Ava Appelsawse skills.

A few years back I heard Rosemary Wells, creator and illustrator of Max and Ruby, speak at the Mapso Book Festival. She was amazing and she explained that she starts each day with a warm up illustration of her 2 characters, which she then tears in half - and throws away!

This first piece is purely for warm up and to get her hand ready to work. I was shocked, and awed.

I quickly sketched Ava here peeking around the tree, book 2 has more than a few scenes in the woods, so this was good practice. Will I tear it up and throw it away - not so fast! It may still end up in the 2nd book. Either way it was an excellent warm up and a great way to start my day.