At the beginning of January I decided to challenge myself to paint 30 animals in the month. I’ve used a lot of different media but these are among the watercolor, gouache, and watercolor pencil/crayon pieces I’ve completed. Almost all of them are in the 6×6″ range, in a sketchpad with 90 lb. paper that seems to handle water media fairly well.

You can see that I was experimenting with the w/c pencils and w/c crayons, not sure how they would work. I have to say I rather like them, even though they look a bit more drawn than painted. But I moved on to watercolor and pan gouache soon, with a little of the w/c pencils/crayons thrown in (and occasionally a fine line marker).

Fell in love with roosters! The colors and gestures of the feathers are so whimsical. The second one (just above) is a bit larger, around 5×8″.

This looks huge here–it’s on a greeting card that’s about 4×5″!

I finally managed to find that distillation of the figures that I like best, relying on the paint to do what it does well. The Weimaraner has some silver paint with a shine to it that I think serves the subject nicely.

And this last one is a return to the more impasto looking gouache, used the way I’m most familiar with, but this charming camel needed that kind of detail. After all, her eyelashes tell such a tale, don’t you think?

Well, thanks for looking and please feel free to comment. I haven’t shared here in a LONG time!