Postcard to Katherine

This month's postcard was posted to Katherine Tyrrell of Making a Mark. Strangely, I didn't find anything on my walks that I liked more than this dried maple twig. I loved the shape and the subtle colours found in it's leaves.

Most of it was completed with watercolours and then touches of coloured pencil were added to emphasis the greens and yellows and add a little definition to the edges of the background. Then the whole thing was lightly splattered with the various colours (purples and greens) to give it a little more interest. In retrospect, I think I should not have copied one of the leaves so closely and changed it's shape but sometimes you don't see things until they are pointed out so I won't point them out here! I tried removing some of the shapes but the colour was staining so I added a couple instead.

I was actually happier with this quick pencil sketch (of the Jet d'Eau) I put on the envelope. It was fun to do something with just a suggestion of detail and although it was from a photo of mine, I thought this quick technique could be applied to sketching en plein air.