Chillin' Turtle

Another sketch/painting done whilst in Key West.  One of the hotels has a display of turtles.  This little guy was just chillin' off by himself, with his head held high, like he was posing for a picture.  So I obliged him.  I really liked the way the shadows hit the top of his shell.

                                    Watercolor in Etchr sketchbook

Key West 2020 - More Palm Trees

For some strange reason, I have an aversion to drawing/painting on the backside of page in my any sketchbooks  No idea why.  So it is cool to me when I actually do a double page spread like this solitary palm tree in Key West.

                                        watercolor and ink Etchr sketchbook

And here is the progression of the drawing before painting.  The tree was drawn with a Stabilo Fineliner Point 88 (brown) like that darn camel.

Key West 2019-2020

Spent another New Years in Key West.  We had beautiful weather, just simply gorgeous, and I was able to do a few paintings.  This was me sitting at the pool and looking up at the palm trees.

Oh, I joined instagram: @charlieamra  

Let's see if this Old can figure it out.  :-P

                                    Watercolor in Etchr sketchbook

Merry Christmas!

Wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas with a picture of our tree.  

                                                    Merry Christmas!!!!

                                             Watercolor in Etchr Sketchbook

I'm Back

After a productive Inktober, I took a bit of time off, but now I am back (with a pun no less).  I found a bunch of my old Muscle & Fitness / Muscular Development books that I used for anatomy references but also for ideas to torture my lifting partners and myself.  

This is from a photo of Charles Durr, who competed in IFBB in the 90's, who was doing front pulls (bar not included).

                                       Ink and watercolor in Etchr Sketchbook

                                               Just the ink version

Flowers - Nasurtium

According to Birds & Bloom, humans aren't the only ones who enjoy nasturtiums (I had never heard of them before seeing the picture in magazine).  Moths and butterfly caterpillars enjoy theirs leaves. . .song birds too.

This one took a while to complete.  I layered the paint and employed negative space painting to call out the surrounding leaves (see below).  The veins of the leaves were drawn with an opaque white paint (Dr. Martin's Bleedproof white).  The stamens are a bit muddy/muddled, but beyond that, I like the final results.

                                  watercolor in Etchr sketchbook

Fall Trees

Tis the season of spectacular foliage.  The trees in the parking lot at work all turned yellow and red and orange from the top down, not sure I have witnessed such a thing.  They all looked as if their tops were dipped in color and let to set.  Pretty cool.  I snapped a few photos for reference and decided to do something simple in their honor.  




                                      Watercolor in etchr sketchbook