Dreaming of Tuscany

If I were to make a wish list for this Christmas it would include:

Double French doors for my garage, with a view out the studio, oh but that means moving to somewhere picturesque, hmmm maybe the mountains? But then I don't like the cold, so maybe sub tropical, oh but then they get storms, and if I'm making a wish list lets make it worthy, 

so how about a...

farm house in Tuscany with a gorgeous view over fields of lavender

...with a gardener to look after the organic garden and free range chickens, and our house cow

...and an ideally located studio

 Coming back to reality for just one moment - 

my wish list for Christmas is simple: 

great food, family, friends, and relaxing with a great book, with peace and calm, and coolness, while sipping Shiraz from the fridge to the funky jazz softly playing the background...

Watercolour Splash 1

AEDM, (day #20)...As the first start to my self imposed watercolour restriction, I have three quick 'play' sketches.

Flowers seem to be a current theme... It is almost summer after all

don't try to use neocolour II crayons for watercolour wash background on cheap paper

Discoveries so far:

- o.k. first the obvious- watercolour loves water! Pre wetting the paper ( either a little or a lot), then dropping the pure colour on the page, and allowing it to self blend gets great results.

- this requires a certain amount of patience! No fiddling allowed - 

walk away and just let it do its thing!

- although you can use any sketch book, or paper, you really do get better results on 

watercolour paper. 

-I really like adding the loose black lines - sometimes first, sometimes after

These three sketches were in my small cheapy sketchbook... Good enough for experimenting, but when it came to the neocolor II's they wouldn't dissolve into watery colour, it stayed flat.

 Also the pilot V pen which normally runs with water, just wouldn't at all! (see daisys above ) 

Tip: The better the paper the more water you can use! 

To find out why I started Watercolour Splash - read it here

How's everyone going with AEDM? Whew -  visiting as many creative folk as I can!  

Its been great to get my butt brush in action :-)

A big shout out to  Aimee @ List it Tuesday
Leah @ AEDM: Creative Every Day