Much needed laughter

I had a much needed laugh at my own expense today. The last few days have been really hard for me; I have a lot of financial and other deadlines approaching that I don't have an answer for and I've had to quit both my jobs in order to try to find an off campus job that will give me 20 hrs a week.

Due to my new interest in watercolor pencils, I thought I would take a look at the Colored Pencil forum. This made me wonder what brand of color pencils I had. I knew they were most likely student quality. I bought these over two years ago, and they've been sitting in my art supplies relatively unused for quite a while. I pull them out, and the title catches my eye.

Karat Aquarell. Wait, isn't that...?



Yes indeed. Folks, these are Watercolor Pencils.

My supply of watercolor pencils has suddenly increased by 24.

Flowers

This is my first watercolor with normal watercolors rather than the watercolor pencils. I used acrylic for the center of the flowers and the white parts. I like how the main flowers came out, but I'm not sure if I just should have left out the out of focus flowers. I put them in because I thought I would be able to do more justice to their out of focus-ness, and because otherwise it left a lot of negative space that I didn't like. This is also the first painting I'm actually giving to someone. It's my mom's birthday on Friday, and since she used to do quite a bit of drawing and painting and she's the one who gave me the watercolors, I though this would be a great gift. She's my mother, so hopefully she'll be okay with the fact that it isn't a Matisse. I really hope she likes it; I thought it would be a lot better than just giving her a card (she lives in Arizona).

I loved painting this, I did lots of layers and ended up recruiting the paintbrushes I had originally bought (but never used) for acrylic over to watercolor. The photo doesn't quite show all the variation in the petals, but I don't have my USB cord for my camera and I didn't want to smoosh it on the scanner.

I've already observed that at least for my style right now, I definitely like the harder brushes rather than the softer ones, if that makes any sense. Ironically, the harder ones feel more fluid to me. I'm going to need to go brush shopping soon. I'll just add that to my ever expanding list.

I'd love a friendly critique, if anyone is willing to give one. I'm very, very new at this and would appreciate any advice on how to improve. (Other than practicing, which given how much fun I had doing this one, I don't think I'll have a problem with that)

Reeves watercolors (student grade)
Windsor and Newton Acrylic paints (yellow and white)
Arches 140# HP Br. White
6 hours (with dinner and other breaks included)

Rainbow quilt

I like how the side of the quilt hanging off the bed came out. I paid more attention to the details in this drawing more than the others I've been doing lately. In otherwords, it was a drawing, not a sketch. I'm not sure what I could improve about the top of the quilt, but the perspective is a bit off. I think it'll just take more practice. Surprisingly, it was the perspective in the headboard and footboard that gave me the most trouble, as you can probably see. The quilt actually has a lot more color in it than is indicated here, but I only have 8 Albrecht Durer pencils, and there's only so many combinations one can do in a reasonable amount of time. When I add to my collection, I am definitely picking up a purple. The quilt has lots of red purple, pink, red, normal purple, and bluish purple that I wasn't quite able to pull off with my limited expertise and palette.

Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils
Moleskine sketchbook