Day 3 Ari Cat ATC Pen and Wash

Ari Cat ATC

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen & Watercolor on WC paper

Very, very tired! Didn't paint today till 11pm and got up at 4am. So wanted something fast and easy - and to use that fatigue for some elegance. 

Naturally after doing 14 ATCs for an animals exchange, I decided I wanted another one to keep or swap. So I looked at my cat, did him in the pose he started with, did not even pencil him.

The Pentel Pocket Brush Pen has a slow learning curve. It's extremely sensitive. I can get wonderful very fine marks with it or good broad ones or thick-thin lines. I've had a lot of practice with other brush pens and love them, but this is a challenge by way of quality. I know I can do more. Watercolor I kept simple in three colors - Sepia, Payne's Gray and Quinacridone Burnt Orange.

All in all, success! Even on days when I almost didn't do it. This really felt good, especially when today was a very bad day. I forgot to take my medication and spent most of it in mind-blotting chronic pain after it wore off. That ate most of the day but I was in a good mood and an hour after I realized it and took it, I was fine. C'est la vie - it's why I'm not an addict.

Ari Cat Life Sketches

Ari cat sketches from life 3" x 5"

Winsor & Newton Watercolour Markers

Pocket Moleskine accordion fold journal

I almost didn't even draw today, the cold came back and I felt completely drug out. But my beautiful fluffy muse came and posed right in front of me in compact folded position, all but one foot tucked neatly under him. I had to sketch my beautiful Ari. He moved into the top position twice, which was very good for getting his chest and one visible paw.

Love my Ari cat. The markers are as good as any brush tip pen for capturing his gestures and I do love how it looks when I break the line to give his fur texture. Also always loved the way his knees puff when he lays down like that, sometimes sticking up higher than the middle of his back.

California Hillside Day 28 of 30 in 30 Challenge

California Hillside

8 1/2" x 6" or so, WN watercolor marker on paper

Did another painting in Winsor & Newton Watercolour Markers, this time from a photo I took on my way to the clinic a few weeks ago. Got an interesting tree and a ridge where I changed the shape for esthetic reasons, some bushes and bare trees in the distance. Just fooling around with skies and landscapes, this time in an 8 1/2" x 11" Stillman & Birn Beta journal - rough heavy white watercolor paper that I love for pastels as well as wet mediums. The small one is entirely dedicated to pastels, this one's going to be water mediums or whatever comes to hand. 

Earlier this morning I did a cat sketch or two in my pocket Moleskine, finishing up a two page spread of sketches including figures as well as cats. Figures mostly from imagination, one or two from a poses book I bought.

The month is almost over, but thanks to the 30 in 30 challenge, I'm more or less back to Daily Painting and Sketching. If not a full on painting, at least a sketch! Might be more later or not as I'm going out to the clinic.

Followed up with another sketch under the landscape, this time a life sketch of a big fern out at the clinic garden.

Fern life sketch

Winsor & Newton watercolour markers

Yeah, it is sort of flat on the top like that, oddly enough. It just folds over past a certain point. It's big, about my height and the base very wide. A beautiful reminder of the gentle climate I live in now.