paint party Friday... whimsical tree study

more about this later!

Welcome to "Watching paint dry" with LeeAnna!
Sitting on the porch this weekend, I decided to paint a tree in my sketchbook. A sketchy undertaking as the paper is too thin for watercolor, but...it's the place to experiment

and this happened

I started with brush leaves... press and lift a round brush. Lots of colors! The more the merrier!

then I added in a trunk

and some mushrooms and hidden places and lots of sketchy lines with pigma pen

I used an almost dry brush to hint at a background color, and love the way it looks! YEA!
Still in the sketch book I went for an analagous color scheme on the leaves but kept the method. 

paint leaves then fill in with trunks

isn't it interesting to see how it looks cropped in photos?

the next day, I pulled out the watercolor paper and just started again with leaves, then trunk, then background and lake.

almost a dry brush, created highlights on the lake, and underbrush around the lake... I like it. Then I added in dots of white and black.
I have to mention it's eye-opening to see these in photos. When seen in person they are quite small and less detailed from a distance

on display!

this one was to be more abstract, the trunk was implied with words

Ahhhh Cropping is great!

start with a wide flat brush dipped into two colors and swiped across the page

Then..."just keep going... "
(I liked how the farthest back tree came out)

As I was writing Thursday's list of Likes, and thinking of how I felt about some friends, I sketched then painted this

then put in a background color of yellow

which warped the paper and messed it up... so I drew this over the yellow

finally,

I like this quote by Jean Cocteau


"Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work," he advised writers and artists. "Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like — then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping."

Linking to
https://paintpartyfriday.blogspot.com/