Finished Japanese Garden Page

I was planning on making this my last page of my Virtual Trip to a Japanese Garden journal.  After looking at it I thought it would be better as my first page.  It shows a sketch from each lesson plan and would nicely fit as the first page even though it has sayonara on it.  This was sketched on Arches off white 140 pound cold press watercolor paper.  Watercolor paints are from Daniel and Smith.  The bamboo is drawn in copper ink with a  Pelikano Junior fountain pen, and the writing was with a bamboo pen and watercolor pigment. Just want to thank Laura for letting me know about the class.

Painting White Koi

I decided to work on sketching white koi.  I was afraid that the other colors would cause the fish to look off, but I like how they turned out. I used Arches 140 pound cold press watercolor paper and Daniel and Smith watercolor paints.  I used Mineral Violet for shading the fish in the blue water and Perylene Green for the fish in the greenish-yellow water. The first fish on the left I made ripples by painting French Ultramarine Blue mixed with Neutral Tint over the fish and water that had previously had a wash of the same color lightly pulled over the fish.  The center fish I made ring like ripples by using the same mix as above, but making the sharper edge ringlets.  On the final fish I used a mix of Perylene Green and Hanasa Yellow to try and show reflections.  The last fish had some problems of the orange spots wanting to lift off with the final wash.  I have learned so much on using watercolors with taking the Stratford free workshop class and Laura's Imaginary Realm class.