Morning Walk Tidbits

To see larger size, click image, then click “All Sizes”
Ink & Kremer Pigments Watercolor on 1/4 sheet Arches 140 lb cold press (didn’t quite fit in scanner so a bit of top and bottom got cut off).

This morning I met my friend Barbara for a wonderful walk from her house near Berkeley’s Live Oak Park up through the hills to Tilden Park and back. It was a great walk and talk and I collected these bits and pieces of plant life along the way to paint when I got home. We’ve been friends since we were roommates before we had kids (and our kids are now older than we were when first met at the old Berkeley Co-op bulletin board where I was posting a “roommate wanted” sign). Barbara is an amazing artist and it was so exciting seeing her new work in clay and mosaic, which I’m looking forward to posting here when it’s finished.

I decided to paint on “real” watercolor paper today, rather than in my sketchbook, and to finally try out my Kremer Pigments watercolor set that I learned about from Carol of Paris Breakfasts blog. These paints are amazing! They are so responsive and juicy and rich–unlike anything I’ve used before. Many of the colors included in the 14 pan set are different than my usual palette but seem to be a very astute selection of colors. I can’t wait to play with them some more on a larger scale. I actually started the top twig with my usual palette of mostly Winsor Newton colors and then painted the rest with the Kremer set.

Looking at the picture in this smaller view, I feel compelled to note that the dark brown item on the right is not a piece of cat pooh with litter stuck to it, despite the resemblance. I didn’t pay much attention to the relative size of objects, so things are not quite to scale.

I’d like to find out what each item is and write that on the painting but the only one I know is the Magnolia seedpod. Any identifications are welcome–you might be able to tell better from the scan of the actual objects in the image below. The leaf at the bottom of the painting is fuzzy and soft and gray green but isn’t in the picture below, since I’d already tossed it.
(Click image and select All Sizes to enlarge)