Online Sketch Class - Lesson Two

I got lesson two finished! For this lesson we were to focus on mixing greens from blue and yellow and adding red when needed to change the tone. To apply this knowledge our objective was to draw leaves, three to a page. I struggled with getting three leaves to fit on the 5x7 page!

This first one reminds me of scouts! I love camping and use to be pretty good at identifying trees from the leaves and bark.



This second piece is a rose hip from one of my rose bushes. Rose hips are the seeds from the rose blossoms when they aren't cut off.

The course is Watercolor and Sketching Journal Style and the pictures are suppose to have a journal feel to them. So far I'm really loving this class! Jane LaFazio is the teacher and she is really great! You can check out her blog here for lots of tutorials and helpful hints.

Here is my own hint for nice lettering: I found some fonts that I liked on my computer and typed out the words and date. I printed these out and colored over them with a fine tip sharpie. This made them visible on the reverse side of the paper. I then colored the backside with a regular pencil, making them fairly dark. Then I just layed the print down where I wanted the words to appear on my piece. I rubbed them on the top with a coin and that made the pencil rubbing appear on the art. I then colored in the pencil with my black permanent marker. I'm sure there might be an easier way, such as printing in reverse, etc. but this was pretty simple for me. It made the lettering fairly straight and gave me an opportunity to preview the letters before inking them in. If I don't like the way it looks, the pencil rubbing is very easy to erase.

Joggles online Class

I'm taking an online Sketching and Watercolor Journal class. Often times I sign up for online courses and then never get to the assignments. I actually got Lesson One done and posted! Yeah me. So here is the first product.

5"x7" Watercolor and Ink on hot pressed watercolor paper

I wish the shadows on the apples weren't so dark and that I had left a little more white space on the apples to show highlights. I do like the use of ink and outlining to give it the journal feel, I would like to improve my lettering skills. Oh well, I'm learning.... that's what the purpose of the class is all about anyway! So tomorrow I'll buy some more vegetables and fruit and try again.

NC Farmer's Market in Raleigh, NC

I just love a good Farmer's Market, and the one in Raleigh is fantastic. I only wish I had remembered to charge up my camera battery before we stopped. Oh well....it was still very wonderful!

These pumpkins were huge and had price tags in the $50 range. I've never bought a huge pumpkin like that, so I was very shocked!

The Indian Corn was so harvesty looking! Aren't the colors marvelous!