The three owls

I'm thinking of giving them a tiny weeny head up there between the eyes, I gotta decide about that yet, meanwhile here it is, the wannabe 3 wise owls that can't help seeing evil. My favorite is still the one in the middle, poor thing.



I haven't got time to adjust the colors in PS, I'm sorry if the scanner has made it too flashy again.

Today I should paint something more in the serious field, yes? YES!

Link to the previous step: Step 1

Three wise owls?

I've been thinking about the 3 wise monkeys lately, in japanese it's said "don't see, don't hear, don't speak", in english it's adapted to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. And I've kept wondering why us, awesome westerns, haven't adapted the imagery entirely, owls are traditionally symbols of wisdom here, right? so why not adapting it to the three wise owls? well, keep thinking, after a quick doodle playing with that idea it's almost obvious why not...



I better let it rest for a while so the ink can settle a bit more before throwing water all over the place.

Morning sketches

I've been neglecting these weekly sketches, shame on me! so I'm trying to resume them properly, even if I hadn't even picked my sketchbook since July 24th I'd put it in my bag yesterday, met a friend to had breakfast and after a nice morning chatting and window shopping, in my way back home I decided to stop for a while and sketch a bit since it wasn't late, these are the results, both sketches are not farther than 20 meters one from the other


There where I put a blue sky actually is a huge net surrounding a golf area I think, I haven't get in there ever and even if I wanted to sketch from the front garden there was a security guard there so I didn't even try. So the front door will have to do, it's a beautiful place even from the outside anyway.



This other one was my first target, all the way back home I had the fountain in my mind, then it happened to be the most unsuitable thing fora quick sketch, the concrete walls that form the fountain are completely uneven with an interesting design and I failed badly to capture it, yet I hope it still has the right "feel" to it, I enjoyed painting it.


Next time I'll choose a place in shadow to stand while sketching, august is being hot!

Teresa's surroundings

July project with my dear pals, sketching weekly whatever is around us and related to us, I'm liking it a lot so I'll probably keep doing it, I've started it in my new small Fabriano Venezia, it's a good sketchbook to use a lot of mediums plus is small enough to fit even in a pocket.

Last saturday I had breakfast with my brother and my friend Angeles as usual, so while I was waiting for the bus on my way I decided to sketch a bit, it's right next to my house and it looked a good subject, I wasn't as fast as needed and before I noticed the bus was going away, without me, and the bus driver was looking at me with that kind of look.., a mix of evil pleasure and shock, I still got to have my "americano" brunch, YUM!



And these are from the clinics where I work, late at night or early at morning are perfect quite moments to take a few minuts and make a quick sketch:




And the ones from the subway, SHAME! each time I look at those.... EWWW! anyway practice makes perfect, I don't know when I'll get brave and bold enough to take the sketchbook out again in the subway and sketch my fellow travellers.

Dunk it babe!

On friday I started a doodle in my journal, the idea in my mind had nothing to do with what I've gotten so now I'll keep a blank page there to do another one.

Yet I wanted to finish the one I started first, somehow I got carried away and it ended being a figure drawing, in the most classic way, it took about 10 minutes to finish the graphite doodle and then I had to leave for work, how does that always happen when you're starting to warm up? I have no idea...

So friday's session ended like this



and then yesterday I decided to keep working at it, ink and watercolor, I have this old bottle of ink among 4 others that I've had since.... I can't even remember, before my teens for sure, and never used it mixed with other media, yet I've been keeping it even if it's almost empty because it's the only one that has printed big and clear "PERMANENT INK" on it, wel... IT IS NOT, and I learnt it the hard way, I inked the whole thing and then started to add a wash on the background and IT BLEEDS AN AWFUL LOT!!!! so the page now has ended as an ink figure drawing with a colored wash for the background and that's all, finished, it's growing on me but...

Lesson of the day: Always check your materials on a scrap of paper in the same manner of the technique you want to use them for... before working on the final piece.

The page looks like this now: