Irisses - lovely flowers in watercolor

This months (July) challenge in the Florals and Botanical group in WetCanvas was all about the iris. I have used one reference photo for all 3 paintings. My initial plan was do paint an iris in Jean Haines' style, big, bold and loose. Well, that did not happen. But I did manage to create a pen and wash sketch in my Moleskine watercolor and 2 other completely different watercolor paintings.

In my Moleskine watercolor journal

This weekend has been very hot in the Netherlands. Great to stay indoors and watch some instructional art video's. I watched video's on pen and wash, negative painting with watercolors and a few more. I do think they are toooooo long, but with the fast forward, no problem :-).

The elephant mother and kid are done with my PITT pen and some watercolors in my Moleskine watercolor journal. The reference image was from the Wetcanvas WDE 18th of July.

And a watercolor painting of a little boy, the reference image is from the WDE from the 4th of July. I did not have the time to work on more images then, but saved some for later. 

Sketching and more sketching

I am trying to do some more sketching, sometimes in my regular sketchbook and some in a watercolor journal. I want to practice as I am going to the US later this summer for a few weeks. And I want to do a lot of sketching! I even bought a completely new Moleskine watercolor journal for the trip and I want to fill every page :-).

Sketches in my sketchbook for the WDE (Weekend Drawing Event) on WetCanvas.

Sketches from images in a travel brochure, we are travelling from Eqypt, to Africa, to Guatemala and a tropical island, in one page.

And the same page with some watercolors. What a difference that makes.

And a crab from an image on WetCanvas, pen with watercolors.

This month's article on Unruly PaperArts

Today my article has been published on Unruly PaperArts. This month's focus is on layering and there are already marvelous articles posted! Check out the website for more tips, tricks and techniques.

And.... do not forget to submit your work for the Readers Art Request, we have great prices this month!

Painting with watercolors in my Moleskine watercolor journal

Yesterday was a very hot day in the Netherlands. I went swimming in the morning with my sister (we do this every Friday) and I needed to go to Utrecht in the afternoon for an appointment. I took my sketchbook with me and sketched in the 'kloosterhof', near the Dom.

Today is a completely different day, it is raining, so I decided to stay in and paint all day... I am working on 3 paintings at the same time. A painting for the Wetcanvas Weekend Drawing Event and 2 paintings of irises for the Botanical and Floral challenge this month (also on Wetcanvas). The WDE painting is a pen and watercolor sketch of a blueberry bush in my Moleskine watercolor journal ( 8 1/2" x 11 1/2" in size).

This month on Unruly PaperArts - Layer on layer!

The subject  this month on Unruly PaperArts is Layer on Layer !  This month the columnists will be exploring the fundamental process of creating layers be it with a mixture of mediums or layers of the same element i.e. paper.

Please do not forget to submit an entry to the Reader Art Quest! Our July Sponsor is the Robin's Nest who have a beautiful range of speciality scrapbooking papers and embellishments. Some of the columnists will be working with a range of their texture products throughout the month and they are also kindly offering an assortment of these products as a prize for our one lucky Reader Art Quest winner valued at approx $70. 

This month I will be showing you how to create some lovely layered journal pages!