Sunday Prickly Pears

12x9 watercolor using a limited palette of Payne's Gray, Perylene Maroon, and Quinacridone Gold on Canson 120 lb for mixed media paper. With this palette, I'm still exploring color combinations on the imaginary landscape cactus. This one was done in July. COPYRIGHT Kay Smith 2025

Monday Cactus Pears

8.5x5.5 watercolor on sketchbook for mixed media done last month. Using a limited palette for these imaginary cactus leaves and pears I used: Payne's Gray, Perylene maroon, and quinacridone gold. Also I used multilead colored pencils by Koh-I-Noor Magic pencils. COPYRIGHT Kay Smith 2025

Hot July Prickly Pears

10x14 watercolor on Stonehenge aqua 140 lb hot press paper done last week using a limited palette. This was a class exercise learning to mix three primary color versions of Payne's gray, Perylene maroon, and quinacridone gold. COPYRIGHT Kay Smith 2025

Cactus Tidbits

6x6 watercolor of imaginary prickly pear cactus patch, just a playful exercise of color and line. In this desert landscape flora or plant scene, one can think of finding a cactus with all these tidbits. This was painted last week or so. COPYRIGHT 2025 Kay Smith

Colored Cactus Pears

8.5x5.5 watercolor done in mixed media sketchbook last week, another imaginary cactus theme focusing on its edible pear fruit. This was painted quickly and loosely. COPYRIGHT Kay Smith 2025

Rough Cactus Patch

8x6 watercolor on rough handmade paper done week before last using graphite paints by Gansai Tambi (Kuretake) and Rosa Gallery paints. In this imaginary southwestern desert landscape focusing on cactus plants, I've used the graphites for the rough texture and Rosa paints for their brilliant colors of the prickly pears. COPYRIGHT Kay Smith 2025

Red Prickly Pears Vignette

10x14 watercolor with White Nights paints done last week on Stonehenge Aqua 140 lb hot press paper; such a fun exercise from my earlier value study. In that study I used a black Tombow brush pen on Fabriano Bristol 100 lb paper for three values of dark, medium, and light with a #1 rigger brush to get a mid-tone. COPYRIGHT Kay Smith 2025

Seductive Saguaro

9x7 mixed media on paper in Masters Touch 80 lb sketchbook begun yesterday then completed today. I began the imaginary saguaro cactus by sketching with multilead colored pencils, Magic brand, then added watercolor using all the greens and blues. Next were the bright blooms in warm colors. Background is a mix of indigo, ultramarine blue and Payne's grey. Acrylic mixed dark blue was applied over stencil from Stencil Girl on the dry background. Dots of different color acrylics were put on vertically. Lastly, sharp cactus thorns were drawn at random using STA Lictin 0.3 ink pen and some line work around the blooms as well. COPYRIGHT 2024 Kay Smith

Spiky Cactus

4.25x5.5 watercolor and India ink on 140 lb cold press paper done last week, using no ref, just impulsive colors and design. Another in my cactus series, this one is focused on the placement of leaves, thorns, and textures. COPYRIGHT 2023 Kay Smith

Prickly Predicament

6x6 watercolor and white gel pen done in May on Masters Touch sketchbook, 80 lb. paper, done wet in wet. In this imaginary cactus desert scene I've emphasized the forms and shapes of the prickly pear cactus. COPYRIGHT 2023 Kay Smith

Plentiful Prickly Pear

6x6 watercolor and India ink in Masters Touch sketchbook done in May, another in my imaginary cactus series working wet into wet and applying line if needed. COPYRIGHT 2023 Kay Smith

Red Orange Cactus Flowers

5x7 watercolor using White Nights paints on Fabriano 140 lb cold press paper painted a few weeks ago from some blooming cactus. The blossoms of red orange are a nice complementary color for all the green pods. COPYRIGHT 2022 Kay Smith