Gotta love cocks...

...they are great painting subjects. LOL

Le cock on Montvall 300g paper. Lukas and DS watercolors.

A few studies finished this week.

Study based on the photo of Levitan's artwork finished last monday

Another Levitan's based study. From oil to watercolors.

Fast studies based on photos from the Internet. Paraty.

Paraty is a perfect place to paint watercolors. Can't wait to visit and do it plen air.

Laura

Today I did a super fast sketch of my dear friend Laura. :D Love you, Laurinha! <3

From yesterday

Yesterday I went out to sip a little coffee (but I drank a cup of tea instead) and a slice of carrot cake with my friend David. Got inspired by Liz Steel's tea sketches and decided to draw a bit too. As you can see, my sketches are not as nice as hers, but it's a good practice.  Dave drawn my caricature. He's so talented! <3 Very nice to have a partner to sketch and eat.

I'm very unhappy with this Hahnemühle sketchbook. Since I used the Stillman & Birn alpha sketchbook a year and a half ago (finished this year) I didn't find a good replacement yet. Tried a Canson sketchbook too, but it was also a disappointment. I used to like this sketchbook when I first used, a few years ago. Now I think the paper is too rough and bad, like sandpaper, or bad toilet paper. Can't wait to have a new S&B.

44º Worldwide SketchCrawl

Drawn today at Praça Buenos Aires, São Paulo. I used to play there when I was a kid. Have many childhood memories from this park. :) Happy to see my sketching friends too. 

Vera França from life

Today I went to Ateliê Contraponto, which offered the live session with the amazing model Vera França who completes 73 years old tomorrow. She's adorable and very professional. 

We started with 5 one minute poses, then 5 three minute poses, 5 poses in five minutes and a brief interval with some snacks and a cake to celebrate Vera's birthday. She liked my flower ring, so I gave it to her (pictured in the first painting). She was very happy and this is priceless. 

The second part of the session we did a 20 (?) minutes pose and the last one took 30 minutes. It was very very nice. I put some watercolors on those last two sketches. Not so good, but I like them anyway.

Next sessions will happen on July 19 and 26, Saturdays, followed by an expo with all kinds of artworks by many artists in homage to Vera, opening on July 30.

And here's a bad selfie of Vera and I and her new flower ring proudly shown. ;)

Watercoloring like nobody is looking

I started taking watercolor classes at Ateliê Contraponto last week and I'm loving it. Already did four studies (well, I'm still working on the fourth one). Since I'm a lazy person, paying for some classes is a great motivation (I need someone who will make me do this stuff or I'd be eating in front of my notebook/tv forever).  I already studied a lot of techniques in books and video classes (I love http://artistsnetwork.tv), but it's the first time I take real watercolor classes (except for one or two fast workshops) and it's good to put all this knowledge in good use. Specially now that I decided to attend the USK symposium next month.

First watercolor was a value study with only two colors and the second one using only neutral tint.

Third one was a Levitan ("Over eternal rest") photo study (the original is an oil painting). It was a bit complicated to put into watercolors something with so many details as an oil painting which is a totally different technique. It was nice. Also with only neutral tint. 

I'm in love with this neutral tint by Maimeri. It has a beautiful blue shade. I bought Winsor & Newton Artist's half pan but it's not this kind of bluish and as granulating. Maimeri has the best neutral tint.

And this one is my most recent work (in progress). Also using Maimeri's neutral tint. I'll probably finish it this week (I'm in a never ending battle against my lazyness). Wish me luck.