Back to Sketches and One Big Mistake

 Making choices in how one will use their time can be a bit perplexing and daunting.

For instance:  the sketches inspired by 

Danny Gregory's A Sketch A Day,

love the concept, have tried to do 1/3 of them then find I get distracted by............

1.   Painting my new line of Lolli-Pop Colors and Lolli-Pop Kids.

2.  Playing with the Funny Bunnies and attempting to capture photos of their antics.

3. Having a "love affair" with i Phoneography...which is slowly being shared on my photography blog.

4.  Falling behind in e-line courses...apologies to the instructors...and trying to rid myself of guilt.

I won't bore you with the rest of the list.  Yours is probably longer than mine!  

Let's get back to sketching.  I actually did four but two I simply can't share they are pretty awful.

Purely experimental and bombed.

Here are two "okay" attempts.  I don't recall the theme we had for sketching so I will call these "wild cards."

I started with an OLD ledger, you can see how the watercolor wrinkles the paper.  Rather adds to the charm.  The left page I scribbled on, then attempted to be more serious on the right side.

Through the magic of scanning:

Transparent watercolor and Micron pen.  

I think the following piece should count for at least THREE SKETCHES as it was much more time intensive.  Do you agree?

Heavy black illustration board. Gouache

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Back story to this piece:  I store my gouache in a Pan Maker Water Color palette with its handy little cubby squares for paint, sponge for moisture and tight lid.  I have had two such boxes fully filled with gorgeous colors.   When not in use I store it in the refrigerator.

BIG MISTAKE: forgot about it for way too many months.

Pulled it out, lift the lid and DRIED sponge and stared at the  beautiful colors  covered with spreading MOLD!! 

It was not a pretty sight. Nor my best moment.

 I had to remove all of that wonderful gouache and watch the dollars float away in spent paint.  Lesson learned.

I also keep my acrylics in the refrigerator. And my oils in the freezer.

If you are wondering if there is any food in there, the answer is, very little. But it surely is colorful.

Lest you wonder. I do have everything tightly sealed.  Oil can go in freezer but acrylic can not, frig best.  I also spritz with water and touch of bleach the water based paints.  

My next post I am going to share a few of my favorite illustration/sketching books.  See you then.

Heart Thought:  sometimes it takes a big boo-boo embedded  in our minds to not repeat past mistakes.