Watercolor Tree Sketch

Watercolor is very nice for sketching. Here is a small crabapple tree, done with a few loose layers of watercolor paints. Simple and pleasant. I did a graphite sketch first. Then drew a few pale lines in pencil on the watercolor paper to act as guidelines for my washes. Mainly to remind me of where the highlights of the branches should be. A few details were added with a small brush. And then a few little background shapes, suggestive of plants or distant foliage, to ground the tree and make it seem connected with Earth.

Oxalis stricta

This is a field sketch of the common yellow sorrel. It grows freely in waste areas or disturbed areas. There's only a small patch here so I'm gonna let it grow and hope it spreads itself further. Sorrel leaves make a nice addition to salads, a bit of a spicy flavor. It's a quick pencil sketch with watercolor added.

Watching the Grass Grow

This cheat grass (Bromus tectorum) is one of the first grasses to start growing in the Spring here in Denver. And it is the first one to go to seed as early as May. This is because it is not a native plant. It is an invasive grass that has become the most common plant in Denver alleys and along byways. It is crowding out the native grasses. Cheat grass differs from the native grasses in that it goes to seed twice a year. The native plants seed out in the fall, but cheat grass seeds out in the spring and again in the fall. This gives it an edge over the hardy native grasses, which typically are extremely diverse in species. Now there is mostly cheat grass wherever you see grasses greening up in the alleys. Yes, it is spring and the green is coming back. Sap is rising all around and I, too, hope to get some energy back as the weather warms up.

History of Watercolor Painting

Painting is an ancient practice. Watercolor painting likely graced the walls of paleolithic caves in Europe. After all, mixing colored pigments with water is a simple process. Watercolor paints were used in creating manuscripts as early as Egyptian times, but especially in the illuminated manuscripts of the European Middle Ages. Watercolor paints, as we know them, owe their formula to painters during the Northern Renaissance who experimented with binders and mediums for painting. Thus watercolor as an art medium begins roughly at the time of the Renaissance. Albrecht Durer (1471–1528), a German Northern Renaissance artist, who painted several fine botanical, wildlife, and landscape watercolors, is considered one of the earliest watercolor artists.