Pelican sketch

Since I'm trying to mentally live in a warmer climate, I'll be posting more tropical scenes.  I took photos of pelicans who were dive bombing and flying around near snorklers in Magen's Bay, USVI.  Now I've painted it for your viewing pleasure.

I've used watercolor and colored pencil, a combination Judi Betts (my favorite painter) uses in her sketches quite often. 

You can also see the hole punches at the top of the page, where this study will fit into my artist's journal.  In less than a week I have gotten over having random hole punches in my work (and digital representations of my work).  Hey, it's all part of the history of the object--just makes it more interesting.

Go fish

Here is a painting of some fish I started while I was in the Caribbean (yes, cruel sentence to write while we are "enjoying" this weather).  The one in the middle is a Queen Triggerfish, I think, with many liberties taken with color.  At first I thought I was overdoing it, and then I went snorkeling and realized some of my fish were rather tame!  Judi Betts taught aboard the ship and had us paint 6 x 9 in. paintings of fish.

I finished this one aboard the ship:

The fish here are a squirrelfish (punked out in different colors) and Rock Beauty.   I tried to make them smile where possible.  Unfortunately the one at the bottom left looks a bit lost.