Brandon Parkway Watercolor and Carbon Black Ink 8.25 x 3.5 inches

Another title for this post could easily be "What Makes a Painting Successful?"

What makes a painting successful is sometimes (usually?) beyond the obvious. Most of us consider a "pretty picture" to be a successful page, but what about all those "all most, not quite" practice pages we do? Do they count?

I consider the page above a success, and you may be thinking "she's losing it if she thinks that's a successful painting." And that's okay. Because you can't "see" my goals for this piece.

I am NOT a landscape painter, but I have hopes of one day mastering this genre. When I left the house this morning to go out and sketch, I had a TOTALLY different image in my head. One that was loose and charming with just the right touch of detail.

And then I arrived on location and got busy.

And.....failed. On the first goal anyway. This sketch is not loose nor charming. It is an improvement over this image (third shot down) of a lake not too far away. This image is not as overworked and muddy. I actually managed to leave a couple of areas alone rather than "fix" them.

The things I learned are:

• Next time, take the stool. Even if I don't think I'll need it, I will. I have no problem sitting on the ground. I do, however, dislike ants. Ants crawling on me. Ants biting. Enough said. 
• I wore a hat to help shade my eyes from the bright sunshine. So why then did I take a shiny, chrome document clip to hold the pages of my sketchbook open? I will be swapping that out for flat black. Unless I need to use the shiny clip for mirror signaling. I could get lost, you know!
• It's best to take the tissue out of the package before I need it.
• Use of black ink helped this sketch tremendously. In fact, it wouldn't have made prime time without the ink. 
• I have recently started wearing a white sweat band on my wrist to wipe my paint on when I'm on location. It makes life a little easier. I don't have to hang on to the paper towel. Unless I happen not to have my wrist band and decide to use my wrist anyway. (It must have looked pretty bad because the guy at the deli told me where the ladies room was—without me asking!)
• If it's working, leave it alone. There wasn't a cloud in the sky today, but since the sky kinda worked in this, I decided to leave well enough alone. Oh, and there wasn't a hill either. 

Watercolor only in the top and bottom sketches, white and black ink in the middle sketch; Handbook Watercolor Sketchbook 3.5 x 8.5 inches

I'm not sure what to think of the word "staycation"....I don't think of staying at home as a vacation since I work out of my home. I'm there a lot. Sometimes, too much, but I digress.

Chris and I decided to go out sketching Sunday morning... a kind of spur-of-the-moment Spring madness took over, and we were off!

We went to some little islands that are linked together called Davis Islands. They're located just off from downtown Tampa in Hillsborough Bay. Even though the islands are linked to the mainland, it was like stepping into another world....

We found a small park and decided to start there. There was a tall tower in the middle of the park with dedication plaques on the sides. At the bottom was the cool looking stone fountain face. Unfortunately, the fountain was bone dry and looked as if it had been a long while since it worked.

The other cool thing about the tower is that it threw a long, wide shadow that was very pleasant to sit in as we quickly climbed into the 80's on Sunday. Next, I shifted around and drew the bench with a bridal wreath shrub blooming behind it.

Shifting once again, I noticed the house (it might have been a business, not sure) across the street with the gorgeous cut-out work over the front door. The building was under construction and up for sale, but the red clay tiles shining in the sun were gorgeous. Each of the sketches took about twenty minutes each.

We made our way back to main street to find some lunch and stopped in a Grecian cafe....that was only serving breakfast! We had hoped for an gyro, but the breakfast was good, it was cool and we felt refreshed after our meal.

Going to a place we were unfamiliar with (we've both been there, just not a lot), eating lunch in a restaurant we weren't familiar with, then getting served breakfast instead of lunch all contributed to the feeling that we were on a real get-out-of-town vacation. Kinda cool actually.

And just thirty minutes later, we were home.....can't beat that!

....and a visit with the wild things!

Cypress Reflections, Take II Watercolor in handbook•watercolor•journal 3.5 x 8.5

As promised,  a return to the river to practice water reflections. This time, I decided to focus only on the water reflections rather than trying to include the tree above the waterline as well. This is closer. Still more work and practice is in order, but at least this looks like a water reflection!

It was a day for the wild things! Soon after arriving, we kept hearing an odd noise off to our right, away from the river. Turns out it was a doe. She'd become rather nervous and was making a huffing noise deep in her chest. Finally, she burst from her hiding place and boy, was she ever quick! No photo. I didn't even have the thought of a camera in my head before she was gone! Maybe next time, but not likely.

After sketching in the morning, Chris and I started to walk back towards the main part of the park. Strolling along, I hear "pssst!" I look around to see that Chris has stopped a 6 yards back....he's spotted a "small" alligator sunning on a rock out in the middle of the river.

Gator on the rocks! Click to enlarge

The following photos are not some of our best as we had not brought the telephoto lens with us. (Isn't that always the way?!) However, you can make out the profile of the gator easily. His tail drifts off into the water. We estimated he was about 5 feet long. A little further up the river, we stumbled on this guy (or gal):

Can you make out the gator right at the water's edge? Click to enlarge

This one was closer to 10 feet in length. What you cannot tell from the photos is about a dozen feet up the bank is the hiking/walking trail for that side of the river! There are no walls, fencing or other barriers between hiker/walkers and the beasts of the river.

I do believe this is next guy is the granddaddy of the other two:

Can you see the gator? Look at the water's edge! Click to enlarge

This guy was huge!! The photo just doesn't not even come close to doing him justice. See the cypress "knee" just to the right of the gator? It's probably 5 feet in height. We figure he was closer to 12 feet long and probably more. He appeared to be a couple of feet wide through the shoulder/chest area:

Click to enlarge

Again, straight up the bank (and it is rather steep) is the trail. The gators were all content just to soak up the rays, and they usually will not bother humans unless provoked or it's mating season (in the Spring). But make no mistake, these are wild beasts. They are not fed or kept in any way by the Department of Forestry (that operates the parks) or the State Game Warden. They're as wild as wild can be! Interestingly, this is also a very popular area for canoeing......

I have to say it was an absolutely fabulous Fall day and the sight of such magnificent beasts enjoying the day only added to our enjoyment! Can't wait to go back!!

Or, at least that's what himself said when he saw this sketch! I popped into a little out-of-the-way cafe in Paris* for a few minutes today. They weren't very busy and this gentlemen was taking advantage of the lull. He was actually leaning up against a table with his other arm, but I didn't get that far. I'll put it in a little later though. I wanted to see how much I could get down and get color on in 15 minutes or so and this is the result.