I used an apple as my object to do ten different ways. I did pen, pointellism, watercolors, gouache, pen then watercolors, watercolors then pen, pen then gouache, gouache then pen, watercolors and gouache, and pen and watercolors and gouache. My favorite one is my pen and then watercolors. The highlight is really noticable and I added some different colors to the shadows. I also like my watercolors and then pen, the gouache and watercolors, the pen, and the pointellism. My watercolors and then pen doesnt have as much detail as the pen and then watercolors. The gouache and watercolors was kind of fun to do, I put watercolors down as a base and then used the gouache for the shadows. My pen apple I like because I feel that my technique might be getting a little better than pieces I've done in the past. Finally I like my pointellism because I like to do pointellism and I find it very interesting how a bunch of dots can look like a picture!

This time we had to do five watercolors and then do pen and ink on top and then five pen and ink then watercolors on top. I liked this process because we didnt have to be as detailed with the watercolors because we had the pen for the details. I didnt really care which I did first, the watercolors or the pen. I did all of these on Illustration board. I liked that the board was thicker than watercolor paper, but it took a while to dry. I also think it would have helped if I would have put gesso on the board, but I didnt so the water and the watercolors wanted to soak into the board very quickly making it hard to blend colors or do washes.

The water lily is done in pen and ink first and then I put watercolors over it. I like the way the lily pads, in the background, turned out. They are simple and just gestured, but I think they work well for a background element. The field of tulips was done with watercolors first and then pen and ink on top. I had fun with this on and started to just put big dots or splaches of color for where the tulips were going to go and then added a few lines of a blue color for the sky and let the watercolors do the work and blend. I also tried to do Terry's five colors next to each other and then the opposite of the middle, but only once its dry so it doesnt blend. I did blue-violet, violet, red-violet, red and red-orange for my five colors and then yellow-green for my opposite color. For this one I dont think I let the watercolors dry enough because I had a hard time getting the Sharpie to work, or mark.

We had to do ten watercolors and ten pen and inks. We had to do the same picture for watercolor and pen and ink. I did some of mine in my hometown of Montrose, Iowa down at an observation deck that is next to the river. I tried to very my technique some, and also switch between doing watercolors first or pen and ink first. I think I would rather do the pen and ink before the watercolors because then I have at least drawn it out once. I did a picture from when I went whale watching with my family in Glauster, Ma.

The picture is of a light house on the edge of coast. I like the way my lighthouse turned out in my watercolors. I think the sky in the back ground is really a nice as well with the few white clouds. Im not to fond of the rocks or the bushes, I still havent gotten down the trees yet. However I used some wet on wet and then some wet on dry techniques. There is one spot on the lighthouse that I forgot was still wet and tried to paint a nice sharp line, so it fuzzed just a little. The line design needs some work, the trees or bushes are to spastic. I do feel that the rocks are a little bit better in this then in the watercolor version.

And one last thing about that set is that I did the line drawing first and then the water color. The train tracks and grain bins painting and line work is one of the few works I did while I was at home. I liked doing this from observation rather than from a picture and I think there is a different look to the set. I did the line design first, if I remember right, and then did the watercolor. I tried to make the trees less spastic in this line design, but Im afraid that the trees in the back ground look like mountains. I do like the way the grain bin on the left turned out, I think it makes it look a little old. I didnt add as much details on the line drawing as I did in the water color because I was afriad it would look very hectic. With the watercolors version my background trees look more like trees than mountains, but I do think that color helps. Once again I like the grain bins, however, I was having just a little trouble portraing the rust. I did a small wash for the sky and most of the rest was wet on dry, and a little dry on dry for the gravel.

This time Rusty had us do architecture in the landscapes. I have one barn that I did that I really like. It has some angry clouds in the sky, and I tried to listen to Terry and paint with the other side of my brain. I tried to do some shapes instead of outlines. I did the shapes for the shaded side of the roof and then did lines to fill in the borads for the sunny sides. There is also a fence in the background of this one. I did a wash on the sky and ground and then used a Viva papertowel to remove the sky for the clouds. I put the barn ontop of the washes so you can see through the lines of wood, adding an interesting technique.

My other architecture is another barn close up with two other buildings, maybe barns, in the background. These barns are sitting ontop of a small grass hill. I also tried on this one to use Terry's addvice and make shapes and let the imagination finish the shape. I did the same thing as I did with the other barn and blocked in color for the roof and then made lines for the planks of wood. The buildings in the background I tried to only do the roof and one side. This didnt work out the best, however, because youcan see the wash under the side that I didnt do. Meaning those buildings look as though they are floating or the side is invisible, you can choose whichever you like better! I think out of all of the assignments we have done so far that this is my least favorite. I have decided that I dont really like to paint architecture.

Landscapes were what we had to do this time. I really enjoyed doing landscapes, they are more free than the detailed work of objects. I have two that I really like.

One is a pond with a duck and the reflection of some grass and cats tails. The other is a picture of a beach with a very beautiful sunset and some sail boats in the distance. The pond I did a wash and was originally going to have it be a sky, but then I looked at it from upsidedown and thought it looked like water ripels so I decided to make it water instead. I put in a small patch of grass up at the very top. Then once I let it dry I went back in and added more details to the grass and also added the reflection of the grass. I think the reflection of the grass is fun because the grass is cut off in the picture so the cattails that are shown are only in the reflection. When I was done with that I was looking at it and thought it needed something else. I thought to myself what else could I do, and then realized that ducks swim in ponds so why not put a duck in. So I added the duck into the top right side with wet on dry technique.

I had fun doing this sunset picture. I got the paper really wet and started adding small spots of color. I let the paint do what it does and blend them to create the pretty sunset on the horrizion. I also let the yellow of the sun go below the horrizion line before I put in the water to add a reflection of the sunset on the water. I also added a little bit of beach and sand to the very front of the picure. After it dried I added the three sail boats with a wet on dry technique.

These are some of the first set of water colors we had to do. My favorite were my keys and my Cherrios box.

I liked the keys because they were kind of transparent yet you could still see the details in them. They also reflect the color off of the green id holder, but you can still tell that there are different color keys, silver and golden/bronze. I did a wash over the whole paper and then once that dried went back in and added details to the keys and id holder. I tried to show that the keys were reflective and reflecting the green. Some of the shadows are done in a gree tone. The Cherrio's box, which you have so I cant show a picture of, that I did I like because it really looks like the box. I did a wash for the background color and then waited for it to dry and then did some wet on dry techniques. For the keys I also did a wash and some wet on dry technique. Since I dont have a picture of the Cherrio's box I thought I would put up another picture for you. It is a picture of my sunglasses, and it remindes me of dsp. I tried to show different reflections in lens' and black arms. I was also trying to make the shadows look like shadows, somewhat transparent, and also show the multiple shadows that it had, which I learned from dsp. I did a wash for the background and then waited for it to dry and did some wet on dry for all the details. (P.S. I forgot my sunglasses, so for now you'll have to live with only one picture)