Despite a busy weekend, I managed to get these out. Painted in my new sketchbook, which has crap for paper, but I will fill this and trade out for one with better paper; hopefully. I love the New World shot colors; the charcoal black and greys are actually a base mix of Thalo Green and Alizarine Crimson and variations of red oxide, light blue violet, thalo blue, dioxe purple, burnt umber, cerulean blue and titanium white. Was able to get some wonderful color harmonies against a saturated green backdrop.

Struggling to find a good paper book to paint in:
The Hidalgo shot is a sketchbook I found at an art sale at Swain's yesterday and the blue shot is done on a watercolor sketchbook from Japan. The watercolor surface with acrylics drove me crazy, but it's worth revisiting again because the paper is so thick and strong. It's really hard to find the kind of book that I need: it has to be proportioned so that it accommodates a wide screen format with extra room on the side for a color pallette, (has to be small and light enough to carry in my backpack) pages have to be thick enough to support acrylic paint and I would prefer a tooth to the surface, not as rough as the watercolor paper which absorbs too much. The best surface is the Strathmore Bristol Vellum surface but that comes in a pad. It seems whenever I switch papers, it's like learning to paint all over again!

STRONG TO THE FINISH
This is the last entry in my Color Journal Sketchbook. The book is now complete; one of the most impressive collection of work in a sketchbook I have ever done. I will now leap to a new one, a Multi-Drawing Book for Water color and multi-media from Japan which has more tooth to the surface. It is more of a binder than a book and much lighter to carry. This was actually finished on Saturday, but I am just now getting around to posting it.

Where Have I Been?
Okay~about a month ago I had so many obligations and responsibilities and did not get a chance to paint; let alone think about it. Then the next weekend comes around and my daughter won't stop talking while I try to work. Also the heat melts my brain. Labor Day comes around and I think: Wow! Three days to paint! And BAM! my daughter comes home from school and gives me her cold. We are laid out for 2 of the 3 day weekend. Monday we go to the beach and there goes the weekend. This weekend, my daughter does something to the computer and it won't leave a high magnification mode and makes it really difficult to navigate the computer (which holds all my screen shots!) when finally her friend's mother said try turning off the Universal Access toggle. The Universal what? We found it under the Apple Icon, System Preferences and suddenly I am back in business!!

Thru this forced Hiatus, I found myself back to square one; like I'm starting all over again. This one's done on Strathmore Vellum pad, again from The New World. And this one's for my Dad. Sorry I gave away the Sheik painting, Pop, if I knew you liked it so much, I would have given it to you!