Cat & dog prepare their picnic, poppies in Thomaston Maine, cedar waxwing in cherry blossoms, 6/30/18

Mad dash to maybe get those 30x30 paintings/pieces/works done for the challenge. It was supposed to be for developing some kind of practice in direct watercolor, i.e. no under drawing - go right to painting. Parameters to the challenge were very loosely defined.

I originally planned to use the challenge to paint or draw in such a way that I could not correct. I did quite a few. But then decided not to continue because it was seeming this challenge was really a kind of publicity event to help launch the publication of a particular artist's instruction book.

The other day a couple insights came to mind that prompted me to try a few more works for it. ...All too much to explain here now.

These works are fresh off the black colored pencil, opaque watercolors and brush, and transparent watercolors. The transparent watercolors palette is so in need of refilling, but I keep putting off doing it. I'm almost painting with wads of cat fur that have embedded in the dried leftover paint puddles.

I drew the picnic scene on Staples card stock. So are the poppies, but on a quarter sheet, (small). The cedar waxwing is painted on HP copy paper, on half the page. It mottles like blotter paper when you paint but is ok when it dries. Any thin paper buckles like this when wet. It is the mottling I don't like. Staples multi-purpose copy paper, on the other hand, takes paint very nicely. Of course it buckles, but it does not mottle.

I started this waxwing painting a couple weeks ago by laying down a warm variegated wash. I was to return once that dried to paint in the dark details of the bird, and then create the bird by using negative shapes to bring it out. It means to almost cut the bird out of the background by painting around it - without using outlines. The coloring of cedar waxwings make it a perfect subject for this method way of painting.

I ended up having done about 24 images/works..

#30x30DirectWatercolor2018