With my newfound journals lately, I find myself eager to sketch and brimming with colorful ideas. Usually, I paint apples or flowers but I have been leaning toward painting animals or landscapes these days. I want to paint the most colorful creatures imaginable so I ended up with this hummingbird watercolor sketch...

I showed my friend this sketch and although he initially liked it, he said to me "what happened to the feathers? Where are the details??" Ah, what a good friend. I was lazy and didn't want to spend too much time on the feathers but knowing my style, I usually paint every last piece if I can. My artwork seems to have strayed away from "realism" lately and leaning toward cartoony or more loose. Maybe I'm just too tired to spend hours on a new project.

As mentioned in my previous posts, I picked up a Stillman & Birn Zeta journal and loved it. Well, after using it some more and testing the paper. I must say that I enjoy the Beta journal much much more! The Zeta does absorb watercolor pencil much better than my watercolor paints as tested below with this rainbow rose sketch. However, paints still tend to puddle up and cause problems if one is not patient enough.

I had difficulty layering on colors or applying wet-in-wet techniques on the Zeta after some time because the paint lifts off too easily. However, using watercolor pencils gave me no issues at all and the colors seemed much more brighter when using watercolor pencils vs. actual watercolor paint.

I am so in love with these journals that I want to host a giveaway at some point for them but I have not worked out all the details yet. Unfortunately, work and life has been keeping me busy so squeezing in extra paint and sketching time have been difficult. Hoping to find a way to conduct this giveaway.

Do you sketch often? I would love to see your sketches or speedpaints. Feel free to send them to me via email. I will happily feature them every Friday of the month starting this Friday October 24.

Stay tuned and thanks for reading!