Illustration Friday: Smoke

Okay. This is my sorry attempt at landscapes. My excuses: new medium (watercolor), new subject (landscape). So much more to learn...

Watercolor Birds: Roseate Spoonbill

Wow! A whole workweek of watercolor birds! I feel very accomplished :)

I'm pretty pleased with this one, except for the background color. It was supposed to be blue, but it came out really washed out.
I hope to see one of these guys someday. I might have seen one in FL - I saw something pink flying - but I didn't get a good look at it. It would be nice to see one standing on a pole or a stump like that, with a clear view of the spoon bill.

Watercolor Birds: Nuthatch

White-breasted nuthatch

I love how nuthatches have this very distinctive way of positioning themselves.  Pine bark is hard to paint! Also, the bird came out probably a bit more blue than it should be.

Watercolor Birds: Tufted Titmouse

Third day of the challenge! Woohoo!
I'm fairly pleased with this tufted titmouse, though I wish I had colored the background, so that the fluffiness of the white feathers showed. Also, maybe I shouldn't have made the fruits so red. They distract from the star of the show.

Watercolor Birds: Wood Stork Fail

I decided to draw a wood stork today, but I'm not too pleased with it. Besides my lack of watercolor painting skills, I am disappointed by the basic drawing. I misrepresented too many aspects of the bird, like the legs (which tilt too much to the left) and the general shape of the body. But this is what this project is for, right? Practicing and learning. So there! :)

Watercolor Birds

I just decided that I should try to improve my watercolor skills by painting one bird every day. We'll see how that works, but here's today's bird:

This is the first in the challenge, but the second watercolor bird I've made. The absolutely first one I painted was this Eastern towhee for a birthday card, made about ten days ago:

For the challenge I am trying to keep it under 1 hour, but I went over a bit today on the toucan. Backgrounds are hard! And in general, as you can see, I still have a long way to go to master this medium. But it's fun :)

Illustration Friday: Prince

I know, I know, I was supposed to make it all about Prince. But I just couldn't help but think about the other prince. And since I'm working on designing 100 somethings (#100somethings), and my somethings are bunnies, I figured I might as well make the Little Prince as a bunny.

Illustration Friday: Wood

Silly, I don't chuck wood! I'd much rather eat your garden.

Turns out woodchucks (also known as groundhogs, Marmota monax) got their name from the Algonquian (possibly Narragansett) name for the animal, wuchak, as Wikipedia tells me.

Illustration Friday: Tool

A quieter (and cuter) type of leaf blower.

Illustration Friday: Sparkle