52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 7

Week 7: Watercolour

My first ever attempt at scenic watercolour. This is Lion Island off Pearl Beach, Central Coast, NSW. My watercolour set is five colours only (and no white!), on white acrylic gesso primed canvas sheet.

Since I never enjoyed "painting" in colouring-in books with those ubiquitous watercolour sets as a kid, I have always resisted buying a set as an adult. I suddenly remembered being given a 365-days paint-by-numbers desk-calendar 2009, which I'd never used - and it contained a brush and little cakes of black, green, yellow, red and blue.

Lion around

Lion Island, as seen from Paul Landa Park, Pearl Beach (2011).

And a recent trip with the school choir, into the recently-revamped Sydney Town Hall in the CBD, had me noticing these stone "lion head" gargoyles (below). I guess I'd always known they were there but I hadn't really examined them closely before, nor noticed that each one had a different expression!







Then, of course, there are two lions in the school library:


Alex from "Madagascar" and "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa"


Alex and friends

/>
Library lion

And, it's almost Chinese New Year!