Watercolor: Birds and Blooms

It's been cold and icy with power outages and the ground looks like it's covered in broken glass.

I've done two more Skillshare classes.  One was about painting birds.

I found my own reference photos to work from, following the instructor's directions.  At first the instructor said not to make too careful of a drawing, just focus on painting colorful birds.  After making a sparrow that looked more like and angry crow, I decided to disregard that piece of advice and made more careful drawings.

I am not super happy with these-- they seem a little tight and amateur-- but I enjoyed them anyway and learned some things and moved on.

Yesterday I did one about painting loose dahlias. 

My first attempts while following the teacher were pretty dismal, but after watching all the videos, I found reference photos and did my own thing, and I am very happy with how these turned out.  I used a big, moppy Chinese calligraphy brush, which was extra fun. I think I will do more, but also want to move on to another class.  I think I will do some dramatic skies next.

Also, yesterday the kids made a few valentines.  Evan made these cute ones with old playing cards.  He attached a sucker to the pipe-cleaner hand of each one for a treat.  The one pictured is Baby Ruby's and he used a "queen of hearts" for her on purpose.