Van's Warped Tour, life sketches

Today I went to Van's Warped Tour and I had a bit of time in between bands I wanted to see, so I did some sketching.  It started out as just gesture sketching, but turned out a bit more involved.  Not too bad, I thought, for being so rusty sketching people.

These were done in my small watercolor Moleskine with ink and watercolor.

*Now* it's a school room.

*How* could I have ever called this a school room before I had this poster??

  (Thank you, Annie's mom!!)

Mad! Super Color

There were hints that Jessica got out her pan pastels this week.  I wish I'd managed to get mine out, but I've been otherwise occupied.

Still got an Ultra Secret project going on, but here are some enticing close ups!

Also have been working on some flowers.  :)

My art supply basket is now Kitty's new empire

"Yes, so what's your point?"

It has found its true purpose.

Don't melt my crayons, Kitty.

Mad! Mist

I think maybe Jessica and I are a bit behind on our themes, and I'm going to blame summer.

Anyway, our theme this week is mist, and I wanted to use my sumi ink...and then Jessica sent me some amazing pearlescent Japanese watercolors!!  Perfect for playing with mist.

I used rice paper and painted on both sides of the paper.  The ink was on the "right" side, the normal Japanese watercolors I used on the back, and the pearlescents I used on the front (and a little on the back in the top right corner of this image to see if it would show through.)

Here is the front:

Here is the back, where you can see the pearlescence did not show through where the ink and paint were at all thick, but in that upper right corner in the above picture where the paint was really thin, it did show up!  Pretty cool subtle effect.

You can't see the awesome in-person effect of the pearlescent watercolors, as usual, but they are wonderfully fun.  Thank you, Jessica!

Japanese sparklies

Jessica, the sweetest-person-in-nyc-ever, just sent me these amazing pearlescent Japanese watercolors.

Isn't she amazing??

Ultra Secret Fabric Palette

This is my (potential) palette for my new sewing project.

It is an ultra secret project.

Blue signing table sketch

In the day of photos everywhere, sometimes people like a bit of a different approach.  :)

Here is a sketch for a design for a potential signing table arrangement.  Blue hydrangeas and delphinium.
(watercolor marker on Canson XL Mixed Media)

Snow baby sketch!

Went back to the zoo (can you believe it??) and the snow leopard cub was out and playful for a while. Then it was nap time and he laid down where at least I could see his fluffly tail, lol.

This was done with watercolor marker on Canson XL Mixed Media.

Mad: Ice Cave

Jessica and I are not fans of summertime.  So I think we need a bunch of anti-summer themes the next few weeks.  (Snowcones would be okay.)

I needed to make use of my sketchbook, so here is an ice cave sketch.  :)  Inktense blocks, Inktense pencils, and watercolor crayons.

Sans children!

I made it out today sans children!  I went to the zoo to paint zebras and take pictures of the baby snow leopard!  (Will have to share leopard pictures when I can get them off my camera.)

I didn't have children, so what the heck, I used my stroller to take all my art supplies, lol.  It worked great even if I got a few odd looks.  (I don't have my regular computer, so I can't edit my pictures as usual; sorry 'bout the blueness.)

That was the baby zebra from last year; she's pretty big now, but she's still got a lot of fuzzy fuzzy brown baby fur.

I will admit, I didn't even have any of her stripes down before she moved and all the zebras went into their barn!, but I wanted so much to use the stuff I brought out that I made due with what I'd started.