I’m using a quart-sized Ziplock bag to hold my tiny Winsor and Newton watercolor travel palette.  I’m using a 6B pencil, water brush, and 130 lb watercolor paper cut to size to fit in my Nature Journal.  All of this fits in my quart bag, which I carry in a daypack when I’m out in the woods. I’m really happy with what I’ve learned from this course about gesture drawing and color mixing.

A Vulture/Condor. Reference photo and interpretation. Some mixed medium, to finish the outlines at the end of the sketch. Fine Markers, almost all W.Colors.

Belted kingfisher from a reference photo. I feel like I know so much more about this bird from having spent so much time studying every detail and proportion in the photo. I love the way it is so totally absorbing. One problem with doing this in my journal was not being able to go onto another page while it was drying as I wanted to have more than one drawing/painting going at a time. Any ideas how to handle this? I guess I could have more than one journal!

This is my watercolor of Mountain Lake, a small lake in Sullivan County, NY.  I loved drawing this because it brought some level of peace in this crazy time.  I haven't drawn landscapes before and I found the video really helpful.  I tried to make the big tree on the right the focal point but I guess I could have also spent more time and detail with the smaller tree in the middle left.  Once I look at a scene, I'm not sure exactly how to figure out what should be the focal point, but it was fun to draw this place which is a special place to me.  --Trudy

I drew a goldfinch but didn't do the best job in capturing the subtleties and shading. One problem I ran into is the color yellow.  I have problems shading it and not muddying it.  For me, it's a really challenging color.  I would like to add more background as that might add some contrast so the yellow doesn't look so washed out.   -- Trudy

Practicing with Reference Photos This is something that I could definitely practice a lot.  Perhaps I should have started with something a little easier.  I soon discovered that there were lots of aspects of this bird that were very tricky, like all the streaking, barring and chevrons.

While weeding outside in my garden, I noticed how delicate this plant is. It is only 2 inches across at the base and 6 inches tall. I really enjoyed its rosette form and the purple in the stems.

This wasn’t from a field observation but rather from an book.  Used the same general technique as in the lesson.

organizing my supplies is not so hard for me, I just keep it all in my backpack and try to bring a few sheets of paper towels with me.   As far as recording my observations I definitelybneed to integrate that more as I have been focusing in improving my drawings and practicing painting.

I just got back from vacation at a VRBO in the woods that had a nice variety of birds come to the deck to feed.  I was there every morning when they came for breakfast taking photos with my phone, which weren't very good but good enough to get the postures.  For each type of bird I saw, I sketched from my photos and then found a nice, clear image on line to paint from.  I love sketching but watercolor makes me tense.  I hope to overcome that with more practice...I have a lot more birds left to sketch and paint!

Did these two pages for this lesson. The squirrel is from a photo near Yellowstone last summer. I started with a quick sketch, then went back in for the details, then got the watercolors going. Fun to mix the colors to match the photo. Really helpful to use the color guide on the box since they don't always look the same dry as wet. For the outdoor portion I walked down by our nearby river with my journal and pencil and did a quick sketch of an old cottonwood along with a couple of doug firs and some shrubs and grass. As there were snow showers in the area, I took a photo and went back inside to do the watercolor. Looking forward to a nice day to take the whole production outside.  It turned out to be more of a landscape than a nature study, but I did observe that the needles on firs and pines seem to be little disks or blobs of green overlaid on the branches. Still trying to get a good watercolor technique for that, along with the trees up on the ridge. For the snowy background, I like the dry on dry technique to get interspersed white patches.

1. I have difficulty organizing materials in the field. I have bags and tins for each item, but I find myself digging in those organizers for the colors or tools I need. 2. I've used the watercolor to roughly sketch in the colors I see in the field. I must draw too small or need a finer point brush for the details. I find I'm mixing color pencils into the watercolor sketches to get the details into the image. However, what I do love about watercolors is the wash for backgrounds that are out of focus. It give you the impression of the background. It's a nice effect. 3. I'm not thrilled with my results here. As I mentioned, I struggled with details.  

1)I do have trouble organizing my materials! At least, I have dedicated a bag for supplies so they are easy to grab. I would like to get a small board to clip everything to as a base for holding paint and my journal--artist friends have recommended that. 2)I think that one of the benefits of painting in the field is that it makes me slow down, listen, and think. For example, why are some ducks in breeding plumage now, but other duck species won't be in breeding plumage until much later?

I used a reference photo. The sky is wet on wet. Some of the fur is brushed with a drier brush. It is easier on good watercolour paper- I find the mixed media paper is thin. I used a fine marker for the black areas. It is not forgiving when you make a mistake. It was a challenge with the shades of fur so it was good practise with refining colour and tones and shades. Using the negative space and the proportion tricks was very helpful!  

I've been enjoying this course and learning so much about water color(you have to let it dry, try a paler color than you think at first and just enjoy the process).  I haven't been outside to try and paint a landscape but looking forward to trying that.

Working on adding color and using references, this one still needs more layering but getting there.

First watercolor sketch in the field. I highly recommend a thermos of tea for chilly days! I wish I’d remembered to bring a paper towel or rag, but otherwise I was happy with my kit. I enjoyed the process immensely. Working in color, I see things I wouldn’t notice if I were just drawing or writing, like how much moss was on the gnarled oak that is the focal point. And it’s fun mixing colors, though I quickly ran out of palette space. If I had it to do over again, I think I would use dry-on-dry for a lot of that tree, different layers of different colors. I have a lot to learn before I can get sketches out of the ugly duckling stage in less than an hour, but looking at it now I realize how much the sketch brings back: not just the tree but the feeling of sitting right next to the creek in the damp air and hearing all the birds around me. This little creek is a tiny ribbon of woodland in ag fields and the birds, well, flock to it.

I was going to go out today and sketch but the windy 18 degree F weather sent me back inside.  My paint would have frozen faster than it dried.  Outdoor nature journaling is a challenge in New Hampshire this time of year.

First I painted the chiminea, then I came back and added the foreground and background.  I haven't had time do a landscape  at my favorite spots yet.  But I'm looking forward to increasing my skills.  I'm having a lot of fun especially mixing the colors.  I'm looking forward to adding color to my journal.

A comparison study with color added.

After having gone back to the same area many times to practice gesture drawing I decided to compose a journal page with a few of the birds and squirrels that I had watched and drew. What struck me was all of the different journal pages that I would enjoy doing just at this one location. One of the things that is always a struggle for me is depicting the horizon in a realistic manner.

I had a fun time painting this experience at Big Sur, California. I love going by the coast, and I particularly like it when it's overcast and the water transitions into a darker color than its usual blue/green color. I'm excited to practice in different environments and experiment with all the colors in my palette.