I’m participating in the Index-Card-a-Day challenge, and World Watercolor Month. I completed six cards this week.

ICAD Day 40’s prompt was gradient. I’ve never painted a gradient before. I watched a how-to video that seemed counter-intuitive to me. (I meant to include it in this post, but I can’t find it again.) Anyway, it started with a saturated section on top and then dipping your brush in water and drawing the pigment down, tilting your board so that gravity works with you, and repeating the dipping and drawing. I would have thought that you start with a wash and then build up the pigment little by little with layering. Anyhow, it was more challenging than I would have thought. Here are four tries:

Day 41’s prompt was cinnamon or spice, which made me think of my favorite tea, Constant Comment. When I was teaching, as soon as I got to school in the morning, I’d go brew a cup of tea in my favorite mug.

Here is my watercolor version:

Day 42’s prompt was knot, so I tried some Celtic knots:

On Day 44 I didn’t like the prompt, so I did another try of my character, Fenton, the fairy prince. I think this is my best portrait of him so far. It’s also my favorite card this week.

All my Fentons still look like different people. I’m not yet able to draw him consistently.

Amy Cowen, an artist who I follow on Instagram, draws a face almost every day. I think that’s what I’m going to have to do. Maybe I’ll do it for ICAD next year.

On Day 45 I went off-prompt and did a Zentangle string instead. First I painted a wet-on-wet swirl design as a background, then when it dried, I drew on top of it. The patterns used are stoic, orlique, quipple, and wadical. This was my most-liked card on my Instagram page this week.

Day 47 I went off-prompt again and painted a platypus: