A great weekend!

I spent Friday sketching, drawing and painting, mostly working on the Forest Guardians series, with a little tech illustration for a super-surprise to come down the road (ooo... it's top-secret!!!)
Saturday, I joined the DIS Plen Air Club at Red Rocks for a thoroughly enjoyable morning of plen air painting.
I wanted to see how the Pentel Aquah pens (I have two of them now!) would work with watercolor, in a Plen Air setting. So I took along my watercolor set, the brush pens, and some watercolor paper.

My view from where we were set up.
(Notice how much shade is on my easel.)

Since my time was limited, I decided to focus on the shadow shapes, values and edges. The areas in light were getting pretty blown out anyway, and I knew that handling the shadows well would allow the study to read correctly. 
It's funny how the light situation affects the color choices. In the shade, my colors did not appear nearly as blue as they are when viewed in sunlight, or even in regular indoor lighting. LOL
The setup worked well for Plen Air - I didn't need a jar of water or anything, all I needed was the watercolor set, the pens, and a paper towel to blot the excess pigment off the brush tips. The one drawback is that it takes a lot with the brush pens to cover a large flat area like the sky, and the result is not an even area of flat color (see photo.) In the future I may take a large flat watercolor brush for large areas of flat color.

The result - as seen in daylight.

The final study
Red Rocks (Venus of Willendorf)
Watercolor, 9x12"

Saturday evening was another fun night of drawing with Ben at *LoL* Caricature Co. We had some fun people, and did some crazy drawings.
Sunday was another fun day at16th Street and more drawing with *LoL*.
Monday, I think I might rest a bit.
Or perhaps I won't. Perhaps I'll paint a bit. ;)