Leaves

This started out as an exercise from the book Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists by Carla Sonheim. The point was to create marks with watercolor and then work with them to create creatures (Lab 8: Imaginary Creatures). Well I didn't see a creature in this one, I saw leaves (as you can see above) so I started drawing until I formed this. There are so many layers on this piece as I kept switching media (listed below). The really fun part was taking this piece to work for breaks and having a coworker comment that they thought I was almost done the other day and then I went and changed it again. (before I put the ripples in the water I was putting many layers of blue, but it wasn't coming out right, and then I realized it's because rippling water makes more sense when you have something floating on it... it worked!)

Created on 140 lb watercolor paper cut to 6"x9" using:
watercolor
various sized black ink pens
watercolor pencils <-- at the point I started blending them I had put so much pencil on the paper that I was really just wiping it away
colored pencils <-- which is why I grabbed these

Not sure if this actually is drawing or mixed media (what do watercolor pencils fall under?) since the pan watercolor I used in the beginning was only for about 3 lines. If somebody knows/has an opinion please leave it in the comments.