New ATC, Frog, and Grape Hyacinths

I revisited the Anemones I painted for the April WetCanvas Floral challenge and repainted them on Fabrianio Cold Press Watercolor paper at ATC (Artist Trading Card) size. I did change the background for this small painting from the dark blue to various greens. Since green is the complement of red and the anemones are pink I think this change gives the pink a little more vibrancy.

Not sure which version of these flowers is the better one. I was also trying out a new brush, which I think I need to use on a larger piece of art work before I can decide if I like it or not. The mfg.(Princeton, the Neptune line) comes highly recommended so it should be a good bush, just one I think I am going to have to spend time getting used to.

I am slowly upgrading my watercolor tools from Student to professional grades, still have some student paints but will replace them with artist grade when I need to replace them. I also need at least one more better brush. Eventually, I will just keep an eye out for 50% off coupons at at a local chain art supply/craft store.

This little guy is one of the Pen and Ink WetCanvas forum's challenge images, and I really should have rendered it in pen and ink. But by the time I finished tweaking the drawing for accuracy I didn't want use pen over the graphite and then erase all my pencil marks. Oops, I ran into this problem with the eggs last month, though I think the egg drawing was a better drawing than this frog. May end up translating it to pen and ink we will just have to wait and see if I get the urge.

Drawn in my sketchbook with a couple of different pencils but wasn't paying a lot of attention to which ones, I think one was the HB.

Above are some grape hyacinths. I have seen a lot of them blooming in various yards this year, and I was bold enough to pick one stalk to bring home. I used that stalk as a reference for the above drawing. It was getting a bit limp so I ended up tossing it out before I added color to this drawing so my colors may be off.

Drawn in graphite in the sketchbook, added ink with my technical pen, erased graphite, added colored pencil and then added a few more ink lines. A fairly quick exercise but rather fun to do.

I know these aren't flowers just yet, just pretty pink buds on some kind of ornamental tree growing in one of the city's parks. But I love the colors, that pink and vivid green combination was probably the inspiration for my green background on the anemones above.

That is it for today, I know not a very long post, been busy reading a new book about the History of watercolors and getting out to photograph our pretty spring flowers and trees. Per usual comments are welcome.