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OK, well, its finished. But its not at all what I was going for. I started out to do a really detailed, 100% watercolor (which I'm rusty at) piece, and used Arches cold pressed paper. WRONG. Oh, its beautiful paper, but I should have used hot press. Cold press is bumpy and scratchy, and I fought with it all the way through this piece. At one point last night I aaaaaalmost took a big brush full of black paint and swiped it across the whole thing. But I packed it up and watched some TV instead, and looked at it fresh today.

I actually learned a lot on this one, which is good. I've been doing colored pencil work for so long now that I've forgotten how to paint a little bit, and have also changed how I want my paintings to look.

The checkered tablecloth came out exactly right. But do you know how long that took? Just the tablecloth? After I painted in all the squares, I went back and softened all the edges of every square so there wouldn't be a hard line. And it looks awesome! Then I did the grass. Every bloody blade of it. Then, I did it again (another layer). Then, did some shadows. Then, did a wash of yellowy-er green over the whole entire thing. Not bad.

Then I started on the flowers. When they were kind of finished I still had the sheep and all their stuff to do. The paper was driving me completely insane. I was kind of doing dry brush, but on bumpy paper - yeah, no. You'd think I'd have enough sense to just stop, but nooooo.

I ended up adding some colored pencil over the top in a few places just to get 'er done (and had to resist the temptation to go over the whole entire thing with pencil, and essentially re-render the whole thing.

So there you have it, my whole whiney story. But like I said, I learned a lot, and next time I tackle something like this (and have the right paper), hopefully it'll turn out better.

Its Spring, and totally perfect beautiful weather. The kitties are all lounging about all day outside, the birdies are singing, plants are blooming (the jasmine just started today), and other than this illustration, everything is pretty good.

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