Ugly Fish?

Hello fellow artists and art enthusiasts!

My name is Felicia Follum and this is my first post for Art-a-Day, though I have been following the blog since March. I am an emerging artist and will be graduating from the University of Wyoming in May.  My artwork tends to focus on social issues.  My most recent body of work deals with African American religious culture and my next body will be dealing with human trafficking.

To see more about me and my artwork check out my blog, website, or Facebook page.  But for now I would like to share one of the watercolor studies I painted a couple days ago. This painting was supposed to be a study of cloth using my dad’s old fish tie. I ended up drawing the fish instead of the waded fabric at the other end.  I really enjoy the colors in this painting...

My mom hated the fish tie and gave it to me in high school.  I kept it and entered it in  an ugly tie contest at Alexander's, a jewelry shop.  It won enough for a free pearl necklace. 

sketching: trees

Now here's a topic I'm a little more comfortable with - trees.  I jumped ahead on the Everyday Matters list to #15: trees because a couple of other challenges I participate in had that for their prompts this week.  Plus, I feel like I can kinda draw trees and I was ready for a more successful sketching effort! :)

The blob on the bottom is an attempt at bark but couldn't really get it to show any dimension.....will have to try again.

Last year I painted a few trees with watercolor:

I also played with new techniques of showing leaves (much harder than branches!) and the last one was a new fan brush and trying a silhouette look - painted this one 4 or 5 times with varying results of the shadows and sunset/sunrise sky.  Trees are fun!