Whenever I go out of town, I always take my sketchbook and manage to squeeze in a little time for watercolor sketching. Maybe it's because there usually isn't much to do at the hotel, but watch TV. And it's a great way to relax at the beginning or end of the day. But I never seem to find the time to do any watercolor at home.
So I stumbled on some YouTube videos while I was reading my Kindle and decided to try my hand at some more traditional watercolor painting. I thought this lesson on birch trees was really fun. You make the outline of the birch tree from torn-up masking tape, and then you make the horizontal bark lines by dragging the edge of a credit card through the paint. Very clever.
This lesson on flowers was supposed to look like those photos where a few flowers are in focus and the whole field behind them are a blur... hmmmm. The flowers look OK; I'm not sure about the background field.
And then I decided to try a face. This is actually supposed to be a selfie (if you have a vivid imagination, you can sort of see it). I normally avoid putting people in my sketches, because it's too hard to get the right and left half of the face to match. Usually one eye is bigger than the other or one ear hangs down lower than the other. In this picture, I messed up the mouth (I look like someone who's recently suffered a stroke). I doubt I'll put anyone out of business as a portrait painter, but maybe I could get a job at Six Flags as a caricaturist if money ever gets tight.
