Watercolors, the old fashioned way

Od Fashioned in that I didn't pour these, I used a brush which is something I did for the first time in a long time when I took the Charles Reid Workshop.  I'm now teaching a beginner watercolor class so using a brush is a good thing to get in the habit of.  This fall scene is one I did as a demo for that class; the doves are from a Wet Canvas weekend drawing event some time back and I'm just getting around to doing it.  I can see some problems with both of them but nothing insurmountable.  I need to add a bit of color to the water just left of the birch and one of the doves is a bit too hidden. 

A Deer And A Work In Process

Sheri Woodard has made some adorable small deer out of sticks and she brought them to Gallery Uptown to sell.  We had a pile of larger sticks from yard clean up and I thought, why not a larger deer out of those sticks...

Pretty skinny and I may shorten those back legs.  I'm also going to paint him because he's screwed together and I don't want the screws to be quite so obvious.  Then I have to figure out what I'm going to do with him, perhaps he'll just live on my patio this winter.

My other work this week has been a demo for my watercolor class.  I wasn't going to post it until it's done and I can't finish it until the next class; however, I missed posting last week so two projects this week seemed fair.  I'll post the finish on this and the house drawing later.

A Wonky Baby Quilt

Some things I've learned this week... putting a quilt together using old flannel shirts is probably not the best idea I've ever had.  No two shirts were the same weight flannel and old flannel just doesn't stay straight to cut which means nothing is going to be straight if one stitches on one of the lines in the plaid.  It's also impossible to match the plaids when all the plaids and the fabric weights are different.  On top of that, it's been a long time since I've sewn anything that required precision stitching and I need some practice sewing a straight line.

In spite of all that, I'm happy with the quilt because it's for my grandchild due in January and the flannel shirts belonged to my son, the future dad, who wore a flannel shirt every day when he was in high school.  He's now 31 but I still had some of those shirts.  My camera didn't get the full quilt it... there's a blue strip at the top too.