Denver Botanic Gardens

What could be better?  October.  Warm.  Delightfully so!  Free admission.  Sketchbook in hand.  And what was I sketching?  Well, how on earth does a person choose?!  The fodder for artwork is unending.  I finally settled on this:

I have no idea why water lilies capture my attention so thoroughly, but they do!  I have SOO many reference pics in my computer, all waiting to be sketched or painted.  Here's how the sketch turned out:

Colored pencils in my spiffy new accordian style sketch book...there's only one page!  It just folds in on itself and goes on and on and on....so your drawing just keeps morphing!  Love it!

Water Lilies

Over a year ago I was blessed with a trip to North Carolina with my sis and my mom.  We visited family there, and they took us to their botanical gardens which is where I got the reference pic for these pieces.  Water lilies don't exactly thrive in the mountains of Colorado!

I did the colored pencil sketch this past February, and was only mildly pleased.  This past week I resurrected the reference picture and attempted to paint it.  It's pretty doggone rough, but I'm hoping I've learned SOMETHING.  Like the fact that water is REALLY HARD to paint.  Really.  Hard.

Last night I "doodled" the ink drawing.  It was by far the most fun to do, although I ended up with a hand cramp by the time I was done!