The Bus Stop

The other day I had a 15 minute break at work, I left as quickly as I could and parked next to the bus stop. I took out my watercolor kit and and started sketching. 

My Travel Watercolor Kit

I've been putting together a little watercolor travel kit. Narrowing my old set up down to just the essentials and trying to keep it all fitting in my pocket. I'd prefer to use brushes and a cup of water instead of a water-brush (and sometime still do if I have more time) but if you add those, it gets pretty tough to just fit in your pocket... So here's my set up:

All of it fits in your pocket.

An old cough drop tin (basically an Altoids tin), watercolor sketchbook, water-brush, and a water-soluble colored pencil. There's also a small magnet stuck to the side of the tin (you can just barely see it) and a paper towel inside the sketchbook.

Here it is opened up.

8 bowls for color, and two mixing areas. (I havn't filled my 8th bowl yet)

 I sculpted the white part out of Sculpey, cooked it, and then sprayed it with a few coats of white enamel to keep it waterproof and then super-glued it to the tin.

The tin is held on by a magnet on the opposite side of the page.

I got tired of trying to balance the tin on my leg while I worked, so I put a magnet on the other side of the previous page and it holds nice and snug, even if you tilt it like this.

Overall I'm pretty happy about it.

Here are some times where I've used it:

Dumpster Monster
 A Bored Guy and a Squirrel and a Bus Stop
The Bus Stop
Watercolor at the Crossroads
Sketching at Fort Christmas
Sketching in Downtown Titusville
Still Life
THS Concession Stand
October and Pumpkins.
Christmas Still Life


All of this was super inspired by James Gurney's Watercolor in the Wild DVD and all of his blog posts.

Halloween Paintings

In honor of October first and all that is Halloween, I've been painting some halloween paintings and then listing them on my Etsy store. Just fun, smaller paintings. If I do anymore before halloween, I'll post them here too. 

Happy October!!!

Oil painting, i think its 6 x 6 in

 

Acrylic and a little bit of oil paint 8 x 10 in

Pumpkin Cabins

I mentioned before that I was doing sketches of a specific animal every week. This week I decided to switch it up and do 'Cabins' instead.

And since Halloween is coming up somewhat soon, my wife and I have been buying and making decorations and things. I guess pumpkins have been on my mind as a result, so I sketched out some "Pumpkin Cabins" as well.

Earlier sketches of the "White Whale" painting.

These are some of the earlier sketches I made before I painted the painting from my last post.

The first time the idea showed up in my sketchbook.

a little more complicated thumbnail (with a lot of changes).

another little sketch.

Some Pine Tree studies from my backyard.

the "almost finished" final drawing, I added the mushrooms and took out the rocks later.

a little model I made out of Sculpey to help me picture it better.

And if you just scroll down you should be able to see the finished picture.

White Whale Painting

Here's a digital painting I just finished. I had been sketching a lot of whales and eels in my sketchbook, so it just kind of evolved from that.

Weekly Animals

A few weeks ago I decided I would study a new animal every week for the next year, in order to help with my visual library. So I made a list of 52 random animals and every week I fill up a few pages with each one. First one was venomous snakes, then eels, then fish and this week its bats. It's been really fun and educational so far. Here's one sketch from venomous snake week

Eel Week

and Fish week.