HAPPY EASTER + WATERCOLOR SKETCHES

Did you know that, if you type in a title and then hit your hand against the keyboard, it posts your blog for the day that is nothing but a title? ha ha I do now!!

Hope you all are having a Happy Easter and having fun or doing something productive or spending time with family or coloring eggs or eating chocolate or...

Anyway, here are the two little watercolor sketches I did while in Florida this past week (just returned Saturday afternoon so it will take a while to catch up with everyone's blogs).

This was sketched while sitting in the car at Anastasia State Park in the salt marsh area which had pelicans diving for fish, people putting in their small boats and kayaks, some white and blue herons, and one ragged looking wood stork who stood around waiting - I found out later that he waits for the boaters to come out with their catch and walks up to them and gets a fish or a shrimp.

This one was done while sitting out on the deck of our rental unit. Tide was coming in and would soon cover the rocks on the shore.

Both of these are in my Exacompta sketchbook which takes watercolor pretty well.

Also...how great that my Susie Short DVD was here when I got back home, so now I have this to watch and learn how to capture all the waves I photographed while sitting on the deck at Mi Casa! Susie can paint anything but I am amazed at the look of her waves and you get some good reference photos in the DVD box).

Here's Susie's DVD and some of my vacation photos that will become paintings (I hope).

And I bought the latest International Artist magazine before I left, because one of my all-time favorite painters, Carol Carter, has a 10-page spread in it that is awesome (that's her painting on the cover). I've been lucky enough to take a workshop with Carol. She knows her stuff and her color choices are thrilling. I highly recommend her workshops if you get a chance to take one. If not, go out and buy this magazine - it shows you how to do one of her swimmers step by step.

So, I have plenty of wave photos and plenty of Spanish Moss photos and plenty of other potential paintings to come. Stay tuned - and thanks for sticking around while I just had fillers to show while I was gone (no laptop for me - yet - so no access to keep up with all while I'm gone but that's pretty much what vacation is about...letting everything go and just walking on the beach, watching the sunrises - spectacular sunrises! - and watching the low tide, high tide changes...and enjoying having nothing pressing to do). That doesn't mean I didn't miss you all, though!