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So, I painted the cover of my new watercolor box! :D I received two awesome suggestions and decided to sort-of-combine them: it was castiron's idea to draw a greenhouse with metal parts to match the silver theme of the, well, duct tape. XD And yhlee asked me to draw a field of flowers that uses all the colors in the box... Well, at the time of that post, I had already begun to sketch the greenhouse, but, ALL THE COLORS? Can do! :D

( WIP and materials behind the cut. )

Another ATC! This one took forever, but I'm kind of happy with the result. It was inspired by finding a shimmery dark green in my advent calendar, and, well... What to do with that? Old glass was my first thought. Also, two different light sources (one cold, one warm), just to make my life difficult...



In the end, I actually managed to use all the four different types of shimmer and glitter from my advent calendar in the picture! (Shimmery transparent white on the window and the glass parts of the thermometer-weather-thingy, shimmery green on the bottles and the leaves (because why wouldn't those shimmer? XD), golden gel pen (on the jewelry, thermometer-thingy and fire-thingy), and silver gel pen on the rock samples - I guess those are ore minerals, then...) It feels kind of decadent to have a designated old-glass-watercolor, but hey, I love drawing old technology and lab equipment (and old glass often does have this color - not because people dyed it but because they had no way of removing the iron impurities), so I absolutely needed that one, I just didn't know it yet!

( List of art supplies behind the cut. )

This ATC was for the advent calendar, so, I drew this some time ago, but I'm posting it now after the fact. Maana is a character from a story/project of the person my calendar was for. :) A lot of fun, especially because it's not the kind of thing I typically draw at all! (As in, she's clearly not a plant... LOL) Leaving my comfort zone at least occasionally is a good idea, I know! XD

So, this is for an advent calendar game thingy... You know how much I love those. XD We have 25 participants, everyone draws 24 inchies (yes, little 1x1 inch drawings) and sends them to our victim organizer, who then builds advent calendars for all of us... With one inchie from each other participant. YAY! (Holy crap, I'm so f*cking glad I don't have to pack those letters!) These are the 24 inchies I drew. The topics are varied because I looked at everyone's profiles to find something that a) they will like, and b) I can actually draw. (Occasionally, that was one small Venn diagram.)



My favorite is, of course, the bog landscape - out of principle. (Yes, someone asked for that. Can do... LOL) I was also surprised that someone requested minerals, because, hey. XD From a purely artistic standpoint, I'm especially happy how the dragonfly and the fern turned out.

I used Staedtler fineliners (different tip sizes), watercolors, Posca white acrylic pen and Sakura white gel pen on KREUL mixed media paper (which is one of the very few "mixed media" papers that actually work for wet media).I don't know why the scan is so blurry - maybe something in the scanner settings.

...better late than never, right? XD So, this is the Art Toolkit Pocket Palette.



I received this cute little traveling watercolor palette as a gift from yhlee ages a few months ago and... uh... was at first unsure what to do with it. Not that there's anything wrong with it - it's a great concept, little magnetic pans that can be filled with paints, very practical - except, of course, I already have this super awesome handmade watercolor box (also from yhlee) in use and (obviously) don't plan on replacing it.

So, I couldn't use this little thing the way it's intended, for a basic color selection... Instead, it had to become something that adds to my basic color selection (which is, essentially, a selection of very bright pigments - the finest of organic chemistry - because I need those for botanical art) so I have more paints available on the go. (You can never have enough watercolors... Right?!? RIGHT.) The problem was... There were so many possibilities to choose from. Do I turn this thing into a glitter paint palette? Am I going to be boring and add more bright organic pigments for the fun of it? So many possibilities!



In the end, I decided to make this essentially an earth tone palette. I almost never use ochre and granulating colors and stuff (which is why those are not in my basic set), but occasionally I find myself missing them. Having small amounts in my bag at any time seemed like a good idea.

These are the paints I decided on:



Large pans on the left: these are the two ochres I find myself missing most often.
Phoenix Yellow Ochre (PY42): Ironically, my favorite yellow ochre is a super cheap one. These paints are sold as student grade (!) and, indeed, most of that series suck, but.. The ochre doesn't. It's (somewhat surprisingly) an awesome product.
Renesans Orange Ochre (PY42): Oh, this one is invaluable for skin tones! The only reason it's not in my basic set is that I don't draw people very often. Diluted, it becomes a light flesh tint, and in thicker layers it's also good for painting medium-brown skin. Very useful.

Second row from the left: Nila Colori earth tones.
These are awesome earth tones but I don't really like filling them in pans because they don't re-wet very well... It always takes a bit of time to dissolve them again. Still: if I do an earth tone set, I want the nicest earth tones, and, well, these are it. From top to bottom: Ocra Dorata Armena, Terra di Siena Bruciata del Monte Amiata, Terra d'Ombra Naturale, Ocra Violetta Armena.

Right half of the palette: Daniel Smith PrimaTek.
I'm still somewhat sceptical because of the obviously incorrect pigment labeling, but I have not experienced any lightfastness issues with these colors, which is what matters in the end... And, I mean, they granulate (and unmix) very nicely. I've wanted to use them more often, except whenever I found myself wanting one of these, I didn't have it available... Heh. Which is why they ended up in the tiny pans. These are really small amounts (dots, basically), but for rarely-used paints, that's prefect. From left to right, top to bottom: Bronzite Genuine, Serpentine Genuine, Green Apatite Genuine, Garnet Genuine, Diopside Genuine, Jadeite Genuine, Purpurite Genuine, Amazonite Genuine, Zoisite Genuine, Amethyst Genuine, Sodalite Genuine, Black Tourmaline Genuine.

Soooo, these are the paints I put in the wonderful handcrafted watercolor box fromyhlee!





Can you tell I'm a botanical artist? XD The colors are not 100% accurate, unfortunately - I have no daylight here right now...

( Comprehensive review of all the paints involved behind the cut. )

Ahem. Okay. That got nerdy...

Just something quick I drew for someone on Postcrossing - the person likes hippos, but unfortunately, I didn't have a hippo card in my collection, so I made one. I had to use lots of references for the animal because I simply don't see them very often. (Fortunately. I don't particularly want to encounter one...)

I'm mainly posting this because I (finally) took the opportunity to use one of the Schmincke supergranulating watercolors I was posting about a few days ago. All that grainy dark blue that brings out the paper texture is done with layers of Tundra Blue (PB29, PBr7) over the other colors. I think it's especially noticeable when you compare the earthy shore (no supergranulating layer, just ochre - ironically, my favorite ochre is a very cheap one but I love the tone - and some purplish PR102) to its mirror image in the water (same paints, but with a layer of Tundra Blue over it).



Materials I used:
JAXON watercolor postcard paper (approx. A6 size)
Copic Multiliner in 0.4 and BM (brush)
Watercolors: BLOCKX Blockx Red (PR254), Michael Harding Yellow Lake (PY180), Phoenix Yellow Ochre (PY42), Nila Colori Armenian Violet Ochre (PR102), Mijello Bamboo Green (PG36), Daniel Smith Jadeite Genuine, Daler Rowney Manganese Blue Hue, Schmincke Horadam Tundra Blue (PB29, PBr7), Rembrandt Spinel Grey (PBk26)
FlySea Acrylic pen, white, fine

How aggressive can botanical illustration get? YES! (It's all in the composition: triangles for the win.) Plus, of course, the most important design element are the thorns. :)



Materials I used:
Stillman&Birn Zeta Series sketchbook (270 g/m²)
Watercolors: Michael Harding Yellow Lake (PY180), Winsor&Newton Transparent Orange (DPP), Blockx Blockx Red (PR254), ROSA Gallery Magenta Rose PR(122), MaimeriBlu Faience Blue (PB60), Mijello Bamboo Green (PG36), White Nights Burnt Umber (PBr7), Rembrandt Spinel Grey (PBk26)
White gel pen (Pentel)

A few days ago, I got this set of ten lovely handmade watercolor dots (second picture in that post) from Nil - of course, I immediately had to try them out! So, yesterday, I used a watercolor sketchbook (near A5 size) that was a gift from Glitzermond (and, for that matter, fineliners I got from Risto) for the very pragmatic reason that it has a plastic folder in the back where I can safely store the dot card with the paints.

So, uh, this is a place in Hamburg, near Beim Schlump. Not one of the important sights, merely one of the old pretty houses - some of those are left. What else was I going to do with an earth tone palette but paint some yellow and red clinker, right? XDD



Okay, okay, I never draw architecture, and there's a reason for that. F*ck perspective, f*ck straight lines... XD But, I mean, it was fun. It's very different from what I usually do, and I typically don't use colors that are not psychedelic levels of bright, either. It was an interesting experience (and everything shimmers, because clearly, the world needs glittering earth tones.) The paints are actually very good, it's just that I'm not used to these pigments.

This is such a funny coincidence - not just one but two people decided to send me samples of their selfmade watercolors over Easter! :D I was soooo happy to find these in my mailbox! (As you probably know already, I make my own paints, so I also almost always appreciate what others produce.)

Tarabel sent me this lovely set of five colors that looks like a forest theme or something...



...and Nil sent me ten different dots, mainly fascinating earth tones, and some of the colors also glitter a bit. :D



I'm soooo happy and I can't wait to do something with the new paints!!! :D Actually, I have a plan... XD