These are my most recent doodles for the 100 day challenge...Which for me will be like a 25 day challenge, since I started so late. Anyway, I was just playing around with water colors. It has been a long time since I have picked those up. Painting with kids around is a challenge because they always want to join in, and also they get into them. That's why I moved to colored pencils a while back. Once Forrest ate a tube of Cobalt Blue. I did thank God I used water colors at that point and not oils-the only effect on him was interesting diapers-but that's about the time I put the paint away. (he was about 2) Colored pencils are really nice because they are simple to get out and use, the kids can easily join in, they give bight, clear color which I like, you can get amazing detail with them and they are easy to clean up after. They also forced me to focus on drawing skills rather then to depend on the nice swooshy, swooshy looseness of the paint. But their drawback is that they take longer to create with, the public isn't as familiar with them so they are harder to get exposure with, and they usually bring in a lower price than paint. Also they have to be framed behind glass and some people don't like glass over their art. Though that's true of water color as well. 

But there are artist who have taken colored pencil to amazing levels of art and I do think eventually they will be a well respected medium to work with.  

Here are a few of my favorite colored pencil artists.

Susan Brooks

Barbara Edidin

Bet Borgeson

Graham Brace

Pamela Belcher

Enjoy!