As a toddler. The tiny-headed “false” start on top. The final done after I had limbered up my drawing muscles. Graphite and white charcoal on brown-toned paper.

#sketching, #self-portrait, #charcoal, #graphite

I try to bring my sketchpad and draw whenever I have to sit and wait. It’s very gratifying and time certainly goes by quicker. It’s also like having a dog or a baby. People want to talk to you. Now, if I could only discipline myself to do this more often; for the joy of it, not just because I’m bored.

I painted this en plein air last Sunday afternoon in Houston’s Memorial Park. It’s been very hot of late, but I really love late afternoons this time of year; the smells, the light, the sound of the cicadas. It was about 5 o’clock when I went out. As usual, I purposefully did not try to find an ideal spot; partially because my time window was short and partially for the challenge of just painting the first spot I come upon. In my haste to leave the house, I forgot a water receptacle, so just used my empty paper coffee cup.

This was my second attempt. I flipped the page and started again after a false start, and consoled myself by realizing that I probably needed to loosen up first. Painting a jumble of foliage and trees is very challenging. So is capturing the light, which was coming from the front and right. A great trick I learned from my watercolor hero John Pike is to start to paint the back-lit leaves with a first wash of yellow, then add progressively darker greens on top. It really does work.

The finished painting is about 11 by 8 inches and took about an hour-and-a-half.

One of my Facebook connections saw my post about this watercolor (see two posts ago) and asked if it was for sale. “Yes!”, I said. She showed it to a collector-relationship of hers and she bought it.  Virtually all of the art on this site is available for purchase. I also accept commissions. Can you say “holiday gifts?” Having informed all of you of that, a couple of FYIs: The actual watercolor is eleven and a half by nine and a half inches. Except for the painting itself, in the image you see posted here, the frame, matte, background and “SOLD” banner are all digitally created in Photoshop and Illustrator. I love doing that.