nature

A little sketch of the water lilies at the House on the Rock! <3 Contrary to popular belief, these are normal colored pencils melted with isopropyl alcohol and blended with makeup sponges; no watercolor or brushes here! ...For some reason, I just really like trying to use every medium like watercolor or trying to applying watercolor to strange things (like paper that I know will not take water well, wool, wood, etc). Case in point, I guess I deleted where I ranted about how much I hate this sketchbook I'm using and how horrible it is for watercolor, but I've still used it for almost every artwork on this page, lol. Sure, it may react strangely with water and pills up easily, and fucks up any color / diluted wash you try to put down, but Idk, it's just such a pleasant size... Also, I bought three of them, naive cheapskate I am... (October 2025)

Went on another little not-quite-weekend trip a while ago to the House on the Rock (and some other places in the area). A lot of beautiful sights, particularly the Japanese garden where I saw this fellow (some kind of leopard frog?)! I was trying to really push highlights and shadows, etc and, so, went for a Grisaille technique, using graphite... the contrast is nice, but a bit dull colorwise, isn't it?

Still, more paintings to come! (I took sooo many photos!) (September 2025)

I went on a little road trip last weekend, so here are some little gouache experiments based on the scenery (ie: 3+ hours of farms). What we've learned is, I actually really like the look of watered down, quickly applied gouache! I really should use it more often... (April 2025)

Study of a photo by Martin Podt using Neocolor IIs on a cheap cold press paper. Lots of issues, obviously, but I'm in love with the textures you can get with Neocolors! Also, surprised by how nicely you can blend and lift them. (February 2025)

Trying out soft pastels! <3 The first two were based off photos I took in Louisiana, the second is just a local goose but we love him all the same. (February 2024)

In August & September 2023, I started doing a bunch of practice landscape / architectural paintings. These are just a few (there really were a lot of them!). Most were done from random Pinterest images or photobooks I happen to own, but the bottom one here is of my old college campus, in a kinda Sailor Moon-y style.

Oh, also, here's an old Inuyasha screenshot redraw (a mixture of watercolor & gouache):