Highland Cow

 Ok, so I may be just a wee bit obsessed with all things Scotland. It's my dream to go to Scotland one day. And I absolutely adore Highland Cows, also known as Highland Coos. So, I decided that it was high time I painted one. 

This is all done in acrylics. I hadn't painted an animal in such a long time, so I wasn't sure I'd like how my coo turned out. But I actually love it. And since I don't think I'll be getting to Scotland anytime soon, at least I have this gal to look at for awhile. 

Pretty Pink Owl

At school each year, my school does a 'Mystery Friend' thing where we draw a staff member's name and become their Mystery Friend for the year. We each fill out surveys about things we like (favorite colors, foods, places to go, etc.) so that we'll know what kinds of things our recipient friends like. Then once a month, we buy little fun gifts to brighten their day. I always have such fun doing this. This year, I was so happy to be able to create something special for my teacher friend, who absolutely loves owls.

I had never painted an owl before this one. All I knew was that I wanted to do something cute and a little whimsical. So this Pretty Pink Owl was the result. I painted it on a wood canvas that I found at Walmart. It's fun to paint on different surfaces sometimes and I really enjoyed doing this. 

On the last day of school I was finally able to give my teacher friend this gift. The end of the school year was beyond strange and sad and maddening at times, thanks to the pandemic. But it was so nice to be able to give this to my friend and see her smile upon receiving it. We couldn't hug, because social distancing. But I felt her hug regardless. I absolutely love creating art for other people. It gives me so much joy, and this gift was no exception.

Gilded Turtle Watercolor

I'll start this post by saying that turtles are absolutely not my jam. I've never drawn nor painted one before. Generally, if I'm going to paint some sort of animal, it will be a bird. But my mom loved turtles, and I was thinking of my mom yesterday, so I decided to try a turtle.

I had just purchased some Metallic Accents Watercolors (Prima Marketing) that I wanted to try. I also had just gotten a black Van Gogh Watercolor Paper Pad that I wanted to try the new watercolors on. Metallics always seem to look good on black, so I gave it a go. I don't use watercolors often; I tend to like acrylics or oils more. But I love these metallic watercolors and how they react with the paper. They were really fun to paint with. They really look pretty on this paper too--even though it's difficult for you to see just how pretty from this photo. 

Overall, even though this may not be my most favorite thing I've ever painted, I love how it turned out. And I think Mom would have loved it too. 

Blue Horse

I felt like doing something a little different in the studio yesterday. Something moved me to do a horse painting, so that's what I did. But I made my horse blue for a touch of fantasy.

First I'll say that this looks better in person than it does in the photo. Neither my scanner nor my camera seemed to want to capture a good image today for some reason. But I think you'll get the idea.

The horse is done in Inktense pencils. If you've never used Inktense, they come in both pencil and block forms. I have both, but I used the pencils on this. The pencils work much like watercolor pencils, in that you draw with them and then add water. Only with Inktense, the "leads" are made with compressed ink pigment instead of watercolor. The ink becomes super vibrant once it's wet, and adding any wet media (water, gesso, etc) is what makes the color permanent. So with the horse I drew him in regular pencil, then outlined with Inktense. Then I added water, then added more Inktense and more water, and I kept repeating that until I was happy with the horse. I did the background with Inktense and stencils. There's a tiny bit of Pitt pen that I used on the horse's eye, so with that this is technically a mixed media painting. But it is mostly Inktense, and it's done on watercolor paper.

I've never really painted a horse before. I did do a unicorn with my recent Unicorn Girl painting, but that was a little more whimsical than this. I love how it turned out, and I don't think it's too shabby at all for my first horse. Who knows, maybe I'll do another one of these days.