Hot Cactus Pears

5.5x8.5 watercolor on sketchbook paper painted at end of July, another imaginary cactus desert landscape featuring the delicious pears they form. COPYRIGHT Kay Smith 2025

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

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

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

Charming Cactus

8x5.25 watercolor desert landscape on Moleskine paper done the first day of August using White Nights paints, painting wet on dry, with this realistic grouping of prickly pear cactus pods. The blooms are always interesting to see and to paint. COPYRIGHT Kay Smith 2024