Playing with color

First I would like to thank everyone who so kindly left so many encouraging comments on my last post. You all offer a lot of inspiration and I appreciate hearing from everyone.

I am so inspired by the many artists in the Everyday Matters group that share their beautiful watercolor sketches from their journals. So this summer I resolved to try to get more comfortable using watercolor as a journaling media. With my background experience of painting in oils, I have always struggled with watercolor as it is a completely different painting process. But I keep trying, hoping watercolor will eventually come more easily to me.

Last Friday we went on a short hike up the carriage trail behind Moses Cone Manor on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We found a shady spot and the three of us set up our supplies and did some watercolor sketching. Above is my attempt in my watercolor Moleskine, showing the view we had of Grandfather Mountain from where we were sitting. Some areas are seriously overworked and my favorite part is the area of the painting that goes over into the left hand page, which I pretty much ignored while I was fussing with the rest. Someday, maybe I will learn when to stop!
As we were walking back to our car I snapped a photo of this bench and later sketched it in my small hand.book journal for this past week's Everyday Matters challenge #184, draw a park bench. This bench is made from cut logs, in case you can't tell :) And it's surprising just how much abuse the paper in these hand.book journals can take from watercolor. Just ask me how I know.

And here is kiddo's watercolor from our outing, posted with her permission. As we sat in our shady spot several groups of horseback riders went by on the trail. She was inspired to paint a horse. Now if I could only learn from her how to be that free and spontaneous with my watercolor sketches!