10 Watercolor Squares

I am experimenting with watercolor and gouache for my “Square-A-Day” project for July since it is World Watercolor Month at Doodlewash.com

Charlie at Doodlewash has excellent creative prompts for each day but I decided to go with the flow and allow my brush (or imagination) tell me what it wants to do!

Below are my first 10 watercolor squares for the first 10 days of July:

Perhaps my inspiration will spark an idea for your art too:

1. New watercolor brush – #4 Raphael Kolinsky from Blick. First expensive watercolor brush I have purchased. I like the fine tip for tiny details like the petals on my imaginary flowers. I used gouache and added a few details with a black Micron pen.

2. Used dip pen with Saji nib to draw my sunflower and colored it with watercolor. Inspired by Susan Feniak’s  post on July 2nd.

3. Painted background in watercolor – looks like summer colors to me! Drew leaf with black .01 and .03 Micron pens using inspiration from Peggy Dean’s book, “Botanical Line Drawing.”

4. 4th of July! Ate corn-on-cob for dinner. Started by painting paper yellow, drew corn with a black Micron pen by looking at an online image. Added a little watercolor to some of the kernels. The actual corn was delish!

5. FINALLY a sunny day at the lake! I splashed in the lake and watercolors on paper. 🙂

6. Inspired by a pattern I saw in Uppercase Magazine. I painted in watercolor and added doodles with black Micron pen and a white Signo gel pen. This reminds me of summer camp and a badge earned… I never got to go to camp as a kid but I always thought it would be fun.

7. Eating creamsicle popsicles on a hot summer day! Watercolor and Signo white gel pen. It always amazes me how color and patterns takes me back in time…

8. Blueberries ripening in my yard. Love the sweetness of these blue gems! Messed up a little on the shading so added dots with a Micron pen.

9. Daddy Long-Legs – see my previous post. Nature inspires a lot of my art!

10. Wings from a Common Buckeye Butterfly – thanks Mike Powell for your awesome photo to inspire me on this one!

I hope you enjoyed reading what inspired me to create my first 10 watercolor squares!

I will post the rest of my squares at the end of July…

Happy Painting!

Cheers! 🙂

Blueberries and Cherries

I love summer when the berries and cherries are ripe for picking!

We had such a wet Spring that I had the best crop of blueberries in my yard!  Of course I had to paint them with my new set of Rembrandt watercolor paints! 🙂

I made a light pencil sketch first and then painted wet into wet.  I added sketchy details with a micron black pen after the watercolor had dried.  It is more abstract than realistic but I like it.

Pie cherries were ripe at the lake last weekend in the neighbor’s yard – these are sour cherries – not good for eating off the tree but delish for pies, that is if the Robins don’t eat them first!

I picked a few to paint in my art journal:

I love those bright reds, don’t you?!

It was super fun to experiment in different painting styles.

Do you have a favorite summer fruit?  I hope you share it with me!

Happy Summer!  Cheers! 🙂

Reds And Blues

I thought you might enjoy seeing some of my watercolor paintings I did recently in my art journal.

My cherry tomatoes are ripe for picking – they are my “red” subject:

They taste as sweet as candy!  🙂

And here are my “blue” subjects – blueberries and bellflowers:

I started with a pencil sketch first before painting in watercolor:

I enjoyed painting these subjects outside this last weekend in the cooler weather.

Wishing you a happy day filled with a rainbow of color!  🙂