sunny on the inside

Back in December, I was inspired by some painted ceramic suns hanging in a local Mexican restaurant, so I got a few photos so I could play with the idea later on. At that point, I hadn't taken Sandhya's Zentangle class and didn't really know what it was. I just knew I had a thing for color and really intricately detailed ink doodlin'. I also hadn't started playing around with watercolor yet, but Santa knew I wanted to try it. :oD Santa knows everything! Especially if Santa is either your husband or a friend (formerly your boss) who has been around you nearly every day for about a third of your life. Yeah, I'm lookin' at you, Linda!

 A few weeks later - Arches cold press watercolor paper, a technical pen, and soot black india ink :o)

I didn't realize it was going to take me a week to finish this... it was a pretty ambitious project for my second painting ever. I learned a valuable lesson here: Just because you think your watercolor paper is dry does NOT mean the color's not going to bleed like gangbusters, even if the paper is just a TEENY bit damp. If freshly-painted watercolor paper feels cool to the touch, it's not dry yet. If you're as impatient as I am, save yourself the agony and use a hairdryer on it. For an hour.

For a while, I actually thought about leaving this black and white. I don't know what I was thinking. The color is just so happy. This thing matches every jordan almond* in the box ;o) I framed it today with a pristine white mat but since there is a micron pen in the vicinity I doubt very much that it's going to stay white for very long.

There is now a sky-blue (well, okay, according to Winsor & Newton it's cerulean) background with a little of the color lifted off with a damp sponge for an (accidentally) awesome cloud effect. I thought I had a finished picture of it, but since I'm an obsessive deleter, I'm pretty sure I know what happened to that.

*speaking of, if you ever stop at Buc-ees, go get a bag of their 'no sugar added' jordan almonds. All the yummy and half the sweet. (and thanks to my sister-in-law for cluing me in.)