Menagerie of Creativity » Nature

Barred Owl

Alicia — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:48:34 +0000

This is 5″x7″ watercolor and ink on paper. I’ve seen a couple Barred Owls in the woods around here, plus the wildlife center has one and they are amazing birds close up.

Close up

Carolina Wren

Alicia — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:11:40 +0000

This is 7″x5″ watercolor and ink on paper.

Close up

Snails

Alicia — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:18:29 +0000

This is the Christmas painting I did for my other sister. It is 5″x7″ watercolor on paper.

Before I painted this, I drew it in black ink.

close ups

April Bear

Alicia — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:26:18 +0000

This is a bear in the month of April. It was a Christmas present for my littlest sister April. She said to paint her something purple, so this is what I did. It was painted on a 9″x12″ piece of watercolor paper and was matted at 8″x10.”

close ups

Here is the butterfly.

I like how friendly the bear looks. You can see the fur is purple and gold.

I was a bit worried about the grass, but I think it turned out okay in the end. You can also see some of the fur tones in this close up too.

Bird Bath

Alicia — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 01:05:27 +0000

Birds like bubble baths.

This is 7″x5″ watercolor and ink. I may look at this again in a couple days and add some very minor finishing touches. I can’t look at it any more today though.

Lemurs

Alicia — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:06:15 +0000

On Saturday morning I went to the Duke Lemur Center and did their Walking with the Lemurs tour. It was pretty neat. I got to hang out with some ring tailed lemurs while they ate for probably 30mns or so, but it felt like 5mns. I am considering doing the tour again with a different type of lemur.

I painted this lemur after the tour. There are also some photos below.

I only took about 90 photos while I was there because I wanted to just watch for some of the time. I got a few good ones.

I had to take most of them using manual focus which is still sort of new to me, so I am impressed with how well the focus was on some of them. The reason for this is that while cameras are pretty good at knowing what to focus on when you are taking a photo of a person relatively close up, they don’t really understand what you want to focus on with wildlife. If you wait for the camera to figure it out, the animal will often be gone.

I think this is my favorite photo.

Ladybugs on Daisies

Alicia — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 22:28:53 +0000

I have had a thing for ladybugs lately. Not sure why. I used my brush pens for this one. I haven’t used them in a while, but I was in the mood to do something fast and loose.

This is 7×5″ watercolor and ink on paper.

Here is a close up.

Here is another one I did with the brush pens a while ago.

Mushrooms Usually Sleep at Night

Alicia — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 20:35:46 +0000

There have been a lot of mushrooms in the woods lately. I like this one because the colors are nice from far away, but then there are some small critters so you have to get close to see what is going on.

It’s 7×5″ watercolor, ink and colored pencil on paper.

Here is a close up of all the commotion.

Chickadee on a Crooked Wine Glass

Alicia — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:12:40 +0000

This is a 5×7″ watercolor, ink and colored pencil painting.

Here are a couple close ups.

Green Eyed Snail

Alicia — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:47:57 +0000

The colors look fairly close to the real thing on this photo (at least on my monitor). It’s a 7×5″ watercolor and ink painting.

Here is a close up of the snail so you can see her pretty green eyes.