Good Night, 2010

Good night, 2010. It's been great getting to know you. Thank you for everything.

No, I won't...

I'm so happy with this painting. It is really a departure from what I normally do. I drew the girl on my sketch book one morning when, as you can imagine, I was feeling a lot of resistance to what was happening. I found the wood a few days later and decided to paint on it. I applied and removed several layers of paint from the background until it started to look transparent. It was really fun.

Oh...

This poor little creature looked really hard for the most beautiful flowers to take to his friend. On his way there, he came across this giant flower. I wonder what he'll do...

Red

Red is quickly becoming one of my favorite colors. This little girl started as a pencil sketch, but I couldn't stay away from the paint. The brown ground is a mix of brown acrylic and red watercolor. It was really smooth to paint with and I like that you can see some red in all that brown. I also used ink to outline the drawing and for the details.

Quail

I've seen a lot of quails lately. They are so cartoony, with their little feather hats. I really enjoyed painting this illustration. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Proud

This is the second page in my new journal. I have started painting with acrylics and I'm having a lot of fun.
When I've shown this painting to my friends, the first thing they ask is "What is he carrying?". It can be anything, whatever works for you. All I know is that he is really glad to have it, and he is marching on with it, feeling proud.
Enjoy!

Artificial

This week's Illustration Friday: This little cat is so surprised that his toy robot actually works! He is also a little scared...

I painted this on a textured board that I bought at my new neighborhood's art store. I really enjoyed painting on a board! It allowed me to scratch, and paint multiple layers of watercolor without ripping the paper. Enjoy!

The Gift

He finally had the gift, right in front of him, yet he couldn't open it...

Double

The Weekly Creature plays Illustration Friday again. This week's topic: "double". Enjoy!

Digging

I had so much fun painting this watercolor! I bought new watercolors, and had fun mixing and trying new shades. It took me a long time to finish it, since I had family visiting and lots of work. Now I'm back in my studio for a couple of weeks, and then we are moving. I hope to finish at least one other piece before the move. Stay tuned.

Satellite

This watercolor was inspired by Illustration Friday, a blog that posts a weekly illustration challenge. This week's theme is"Satellite", so here it is, my bear in space. I think this is really fun because I would have never painted a satellite otherwise. It was a bit challenging coming up with a design, but I did it, and I like it.

Summer 2

More summer colors at The Weekly Creature. This one took some time to finish, since I couldn't decide what to do for the ground. After many different options, I decided to paint the straw-like grass that grows at Point Isabel. It's hard to believe that when winter comes back, it will all turn green again.

Summer

When I set out to paint the sketches that I previously posted, I was inspired by the natural colors of the northern California summer. After a walk by the sea with my family, I came home with all these water and sand colors in my mind. The clouds we saw that day were long and thin, like brush strokes.

Sketches

These sketches were inspired by my three year-old friend Mika. She is a delightful little person. I think the drawings will soon turn into watercolors. Click the image to see a larger version.

It's a viola, not a fiddle!

My dear friend Cindi asked me to make her a collage. She is a fantastic violist and lives with an entire flock of birds (really!). I have heard the most interesting facts about birds from her. I set out to make her a parrot collage, which proved to be the hardest collage I've ever made. I prefer to draw creatures that are round and furry, so I did not know how to draw a cute bird. For reference I used an old sketch I made on a visit to the Oakland zoo. Once I settled on this design, I had to make decisions on what paper to use. I decided to use a watercolor and salt paper I had made a few weeks earlier. I added some marker highlights, to give it a slightly rounder look. The viola was really hard to make, too, because of the perspective and size. For the first time, I cut most of the pieces for the collage so that they fit like a puzzle, instead of layering the paper. If you look at the original really close, you can see that not everything fits perfectly. But it works! The background is color pencil on pastel paper.

(Free print for the first person who can guess what score I used for the background. Hint: it's upside down) - leave a comment with your guess, or just a compliment :0)

Come back!

Get Away

Hi

Down hill!

Cat wondering...