What I'm painting today. Am I crazy to try to paint this plant? I think probably.

Here’s the progression with the final! I used some dry brush technique at the end with Payne’s grey to get the little moldy spots and some of the shadows, and a Micron 01 and 005 to get some definition.

Watercolor progress for botanical illustration. Final product on the way!

Watercolor test assignment. This graph shows you every possible combination of any two paints in your palette.

Here's my final for Vertebrate Illustration--a three-layer illustration of a cutting horse in action, and an informational poster about equine maneuverability in cattle cutting. The first piece, the whole horse with the cattle, is colored pencil on tinted illustration board; the skeleton, musculature, and hind leg diagram are all colored pencil on drafting film. For the full skeleton I painted the skeleton in on the wrong side of the film in white acrylic paint, so the pencil on the front would show up more strongly. Final poster in Photoshop.

Here's what we did in my wildlife illustration class last night: Bob-Ross-style watercolor paint-along of a rabbit. They're fun. :)

Octopus underpainting. #octopus #painting #scientific #illustration

Icefish underpainting. #scientific #illustration #painting #fish

I updated the portfolio page!

I got some great advice from a childrens illustrator, one tiny bit of which was to fill my portfolio with the type of work I want to be doing.  Also to categorize more aggressively (i.e., instead of just "Illustration", childrens illustration, scientific illustration, illustration for publication, etc.)  Go check it out!  

I think the next step should be to actually have separate portfolios for all those categories but I'm not sure I've actually done enough work to fill them up.  What? Yes I totally have.  Stop making excuses.  

This Chambered Nautilus just sold!  I don't know what I like better--selling paintings to very old friends, or selling paintings to total strangers.  This person found my store by searching Etsy for the word "nautilus".  I think we would be friends if we lived in the same town.  

Hey don't forget about my Etsy store!  Give it some loooove: No Horse Studio

A little watercolor study from yesterday's foggy morning, full size is about 4"x5".  Our view is much longer than it looks in the painting, but when it's really foggy we can only see vague ghosty looking trees and it feels like we're on an island floating in the air.  

My work is up in Katy's Corner Cafe!  Yes yes yes!  Many thanks to Briana for helping me get all the work up.  The best part of the day was when a girl walked in and bought one of them before I'd even finished hanging them!  If you live in Seattle, please come by to check out the work and support Katy's!

Finished giant pacific octopus painting! Just needs a coat of finish. More painting photos coming today.

Two octopus paintings, one nearly finished in red and one just beginning, in blue underpainting.

Ed: I should remember to put in some item to show the scale of these painting.  I just realized they look the same size in the photos, but Red is 5"x5" and Blue is 10"x10".

Three days' progress.