Still painting

I've had it with the watercolour book - it wanted to move on to landscapes, and composition, and framing. The next exercise in burnt umber was this depressing, and slightly creepy, scene.

I really don't want to paint pictures ... which of course begs the question what on earth do I want to do with my nice blank white paper? I thought about it for a bit but really, deep down, I want to be Alisa Burke. Except for being eight months pregnant, that would suck, but the whole painting with watercolours and design and printmaking and fabric decorating thing. So I started by shamelessly copying her cupcakes.

Then moved into a dahlia of my own design.

I can't get over a nagging feeling that doing the delineation and much of the shading with a black pen is somehow cheating, but I like the look, so bugger it. I'm going to copy her hibiscus next ... Number two son took on the challenge of the umber landscape though. Genius.