Opal Bear - Autumn and Halloween Pages

My eldest son and his wife came down almost 4 weeks ago living with us until they found jobs and a house to move into. They came with only their clothes and a few personal belongings.......leaving everything back in storage.

This weekend they had to travel back from FL to WV (along with my youngest son) to pack up a moving van and get it back in time for Ron to go to work today. They didn't leave until after noon on Friday. They ran into one delay after another so it's not been a very easy trip. And to think they have to go back at some point to get the rest of their stuff they couldn't fit this trip. Boy do we know what that's like. For us it was four trips but then we had two households to move.

We kept the girls this weekend and earlier last night, as they got ready for bed, I sketched this. 

Poor Opal looks so stiff.......probably how my two sons are going to feel after they've had a chance to stop and relax......LOL.

Hand.book Square, Micron, and QoR watercolors. I like this journal paper OK but it's not as fun to work watercolor as other journal papers.

And while waiting for them to return, I spent my time playing with this next page in my journal.  There was no sleeping until I knew they were safely home.  It was after 2 a.m. when they finally pulled in and then another hour before we could settle enough to sleep.

Again using Opal as my model.  This started out as a pen and ink only sketch but then when I reached all those areas of black, I changed my mind.  I started using watercolor pencils (dry) to fill in and shade.  Just too much hatching and cross hatching otherwise and I didn't feel like doing that.

Hand.book square, Microns 005 and 01, WC pencils.