Pansy in violet

At the moment we have a pot in our balcony full of mini flowers of pansy in violet-dominated color - see the second photo. I bought the plant last March but it still gives lots of beautiful flowers which I enjoy looking everyday. Yesterday, I picked up one flower and painted it while sitting near a salon table - see the first photo. The painting is not what I had hoped for to be. I  tried to paint it in a loose style, but I guess I failed to do that. Anyway, I am in a practice mood so there are always many next times to try. The beauty of painting, at  least in my experience, is that it relaxes my mind while I'm enjoying the whole process.

I'm back

> Hello, blogger friends. I'm back from my Southeast Asia trip. It was a fruitful trip and I was able to do what I was supposed to do there. But the summer heat had me realized how vulnerable I am health wise.  At the moment I guess I need some days of rest to recover.
> During the trip I managed to make only few sketches with my pen and colored pencils. I'll post some of them here soon.
>Over this small painting, I started this during my trip with watercolor pencils and finished it last Monday with my regular watercolors. I had already painted this dog earlier but I was not really satisfied with the result then, so I tried the subject again to learn. Hope everybody is enjoying the last part of the spring season. Miss you all.

On travel

The Mangoes

Been busy with the preparation for my travel to Southeast Asia. I will be away for almost 2 months and probably may not be able to post any painting. But I'll open and hopefully write something here. Also I'll try to visit all your blogs to see your beautiful paintings. I have brought with me my graphite and watercolor pencils so that I can do some sketching. Until next time and I wish you all a very fruitful art days.
In this painting are mangoes from my photographs of my previous trip.

An orchid on gessoed watercolor paper

I was experimenting two days ago using gesso on watercolor paper and painted an orchid on it.
The result was not so encouraging but I decided to post it here, though it is still unfinished. I shelved it for a while and I'm thinking to try another one without gesso. Hope everybody will have
a fruitful art days in the coming week.

Rose sketch

 What do you do when you want to paint but no subject in mind to paint? This happened to me this morning. While thinking however of something to do, I grabbed my brush and sat on a chair of our dining table. Then came a picture of a rose in my head and then translated it into this watercolor sketch. Again a rose, :-).

Auxerre rose

Am busy doing other things. Sorry for not visiting your great blogs. Painted this rose three weeks ago. I named this Auxerre rose because I took the reference photo for this painting in Auxerre, France while walking in one of the streets there after a visit to a cathedral. Was there on 30 October 2011. I value your comments and suggestions. 

Windmill and sunflowers

This is an impression on the windmill and sunflowers that I had seen last summer (2011) in Nuenen, The Netherlands. Nuenen is called by its people as 'Van Gogh village'. Here are a few pictures of the place. This is in watercolor on 300 gms cold pressed Canson Montval watercolor paper.

Quick sketch landscape

We have a gray weather today. So to perk up my mood I quickly sketch this colorful landscape. Doing this is part of my practice routine in watercolor. Now I can better see what I should improve in this sketch.  I have seen this image from the magazine called Palet & tekenstift. 

Pastels' study

This is another practice on pastels. Here I used fixative, and I observed afterwards that it changed the intensity of the colors in the painting. I read somewhere that fixative darkens the colors, thus many pastels' users avoid it in their paintings. However, many use it to avoid smudging. I think I have to read further on this issue to know the benefits of using and not using it.

Water drop

This is a mini water drop (7 x 10 cm) I did last January. I was just practicing 

then on a scrap watercolor paper, but it turned out cute so I decided 

to put it in a frame. The idea of this water drop came from the demo
of Birgit O'connor and from Barbara Fox.
I did this as a practice and for fun; and not for sale.
This is in watercolor.