Sketchbook #111: Gouache Evening.

One evening - tulips from life and trying to figure some limited palette color combos from photos.

Tulips took quite some time. I was trying to use all my low-quality leftover paints before the shipment with fresh colors arrived and yellow was just not working in mixes - mostly disappeared or made mixes dirty. I ended up re-painting greens several times, lost the light and patience in the process. Ordered some new yellow right after this experience.

What are your favorite green mixes?

Sketchbook #111: Treasures - Acorn Collection

There are many kinds of oak trees in California and I've been trying to learn about them for a while. This year my acorn collection grew and I'm going to take a more systematic approach and keep all acorns I collect from squirrels until I positively ID them :)

Sketchbook #111: Drawing During Intermission

Sketchbook 111: Early Morning Practice Landscape

While a group of kids and adults execute their black belt training routine I work on my patience and explore my love for painting a fleeting beauty of a sunrise.

Sketchbook #111: Tulips, #1

Sketchbook #111: Black Belt Training

The second day of training was about different runs. I ren a bit too :)

Sketchbook #111: Black Belt Training

And here it goes - I started sketching during the Black Belt Training.
This was the first session - benchmarks, rules, locations.

Sketchbook #111: Things on my working table (that probably should not be there)

Sketchbook #111: Everyday Life

Sketchbook #111: Reading and Cello

Sketchbook #111: Field Trip

On the first three images you can see how I ended up taping a bunch of oddly-shaped sketches into my sketchbook. I will try to make a video of this book when it comes to an end to show hot it works - but I think overlaps of different layers of sketches are pretty interesting :)

Sketchbook #111: Trip to Hawaii - the end of the trip.

We visited an octopus farm - pretty interesting and unusual. I got sprayed and wrestled with a couple of lovely color-changing beasts and fed them some crab legs.

Sketchbook #111: Trip to Hawaii - Volcano

Walking on a large lava field and actually getting close to the flowing lava was amazing! The hardest drawing of the trip: so much change in the flow and colors, so little reference when you look at the landscape... and I wanted to stop and draw every ropey wrinkle of old lava on this hike!!!

Sketchbook #111: Trip to Hawaii

Sketchbook #111: Trip to Hawaii

Sketchbook #111: Trip to Hawaii

Sketchbook #111: Hiking and Drawing Treasures

Sketchbook #111: Saying Goodbye to the Holidays