New Watercolor and some colored pencil works

I am calling it done, esp. as I think I spent way too long on this, well not in actual working time, but from when I started to when I finally finished has been over a month, and for such a small work a month is a long time. Painting is only 4 x 4.5 inches on Canson 140lb Watercolor paper.

This was done for a challenge/lesson in the Watercolor forum. We had to first photograph, then draw and finally plaint some small plant material. It was early in April when I made the photograph of a plant that looked like it had just started putting on some new growth when we had a cold night and the plant suffered some frost damage. Ooh I though perfect, some great colors from the damaged growth but still some greens.

Hmm it was easier to make the photograph than to do the actual painting. Still I am fairly satisfied with how it came out. There are some areas in the background I think are a bit overworked but I also think I successfully managed the plant. For a pretty much beginning water colorist not too bad.

Another colored pencil drawing with a bit of whimsy. A couple of years ago I was in an ATC exchange where the subject was owls. One of the cards I created for the swap had a family of owl chicks on a branch. The other evening I was sitting, listening to the radio and trying to come up with something to draw that would be a bit fun and I thought of those three owls.  Instead of putting them on a branch I put one of the parents there and had the 3 poking their heads out of a hole in the tree.

Drawn first with graphite then ink then colored pencil was added. It occurred to me, too late for me to add it in, that I should have had a mouse dangling from the parents claws. Oh well maybe I will redo it with the mouse.

A quick colored pencil drawing of some Spanish Blue Bell flowers. The plants are growing in the side yard of my Apt. Building. I have noticed them in past years but never bothered to identify what they were. This year I made photographs and then picked one of the stems of flowers to draw. It did take me a bit of time to research what exactly they were. I have several wild flower books but these aren't wild flowers so they weren't in it. Finally found a web site that pictured spring flowers and I found them there, not quite the same color as they have color varieties and this pale lavender isn't the standard color.

Not the best job, the flowers are good, but I sort winged it with the leaves, though they do sort of spread out and are flat on the ground. I should have left out the grass background. Ah well, isn't it the way that you realize too late what doesn't work.

Above is one of the photographs I made of the Spanish Blue Bells, pretty aren't they. No one has cut the grass so they are very happily blooming this year. I think it past years they got mowed down before they actually got to bloom.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.