Pen Pal Art Swap

I recently took part in a the Small Art Pen Pal Swap that was hosted by Kira Harding (Journal Girl).  I was to make one small piece of art and write a letter to a person that I was assigned to.  My pen pal should have received it last week, so I thought that now would be a good time to share what I ended up making.

I ended up first making the picture above, but I was on such a roll after Peace, Love, and Joy that I ended up making the one below as well.

Peace, Love, and Joy were all outlined with black colored pencil.  For Enjoy Life I decided that I wanted to try using black watercolor and a small brush instead for the outline.  That one small change seemed to unify the picture a lot more than the colored pencil did. 

I wanted to play around some more and see what an outline using micron pens would look like, which led to the Sara painting.  Unfortunately I completely killed two perfectly good micron pens in making it.  Whenever I use microns or pitt pens on top of watercolors, it seems to quickly kill off the pens.  I really need to find a similar fine line pen that won't do that.  Or maybe it's time to go back to my quill pens and bottled inks.  To bring the name out more, I also took a watercolor pencil about the same shade as the blue background and darkened around the name.

I hope that Sara enjoyed her small piece of art and much as I enjoyed making it!