Hibiscuses in watercolor

Things on my table.... 

Some watercolors, some brushes 

Some blank paper, some sketches 

Some emotions to pen down.... 

And some colorful stories to bring around. 

Hello everyone.... 

Today I'm here to share some of my recent musing. 

Few days back, I have been to Goa, beautiful tropical place, our favorite family get-away destination, in winters. We have been there end number of times, yet it's never enough, not nearly enough. 

Nice bright and sunny, away from Delhi's freezing gloomy cold. 

Sun, sand and sea, that does it for us.....We love it. 

There is so much to see, so much to do.... 

This time I smuggled a bagful of my papers and colors, along with other paraphernalia of beach vacation.  ( Don't ask my dear hubby's reactions, once he realized why my hand luggage was so heavy ;-)  that's a story for another time.... Lol) 

Anyway..... This is what I came back with.... 

Lot's of sketches and pictures, water-coloring and even mixed-media.

(Off-course!!  That I did with sand, soon enough I'll share that as well...) 

Freehand 1st trial of Red Hibiscuses.... No pencil sketching, just colors straight on paper... It was fun to see colors flowing into each other.... 

Now here starts the sketching bit, and I realized I have become so rustic that I must have erased hundreds of time..... The cold-press watercolor paper must have gone for toss, because I had erased all the size... Hmmm.... Will try and see how it takes color... 

This was White Hibiscus, so before I did it on really good artist paper, I tried my hand on my little ones sketchpad.... Not bad!!  I never thought that a simple sketchpad can take watercolor so beautifully, though paper did go wappy while I was doing the background. But it turned flat later on.

I'm really impressed by the colors of real Hibiscus in all the coastal areas.... From whites to yellows to oranges to reds to pink....some simple and plain in solid colors, some with such awesome shades in the center..... It's simply Wow !!! 

I could spend ages gazing at them (And I actually did, oblivious to my kids long faces. And trust me, that's really big feet to achieve,when they are constantly going on and on "Let's go to BEACH ") 

This definitely had turned up far better than the previous one.... ;-) 

Love the shade of mustard to bring out the folds of flower petal in-comparison of purple.

But still a long long way to go it seems.... It's so much easier to paint them with solid acrylic colors Or other mediums, especially for canvass or textile prints.... Watercolor definitely demands quite a bit of patience and practice....

Yet another try with different kind of water-coloring style.... 

After drawing and painting them single single, I tried my hand at composed sketch... 

I like the way this sketch has turned out -  hope I'll be able to do justice to the whole composition.... 

For all my water-coloring explorations I have used

Pebeo's water-colors,

Campap's water-color pad, A4 size, 200/300 gsm,

Brustro's water-color paper 300gsm 7"x 10", 

A4 size Classmate's sketchpads,

Sakura Koi waterbrushes, 

Camel brushes,

Hope you all like my foray in water-coloring flowers....

Please do leave me your valuable suggestions, I really do appreciate them....

Thanks for visiting....

Do drop in again to check out how I manage to do rest of my water-coloring....