Craft a scene - March 10th - Tropical shores

This is my second DT offering for Craft A Scene for March.  The topic is Tropical Shores, and must contain palm trees and the usual sea and sand bit.  In line with the normal rules, it has to be a scene with a foreground and  background, with the "scene" being the important thing.

My card for last week used up all the tropical type stuff I already possessed, so I figured that it was time to have a go myself and draw something.  This was version number 3, the others ended up in the bin as totally irretrievable.  In one, the palm trees were too psychedelic (you can add more colour but you can't take it away).  In another, the boat was too bright.  In this one, my best critic (DH) said it was quite good, so I accepted that, gratefully.

All the drawing and colouring was done with Derwent pencils and water colour pencils on watercolour card.  Even the pencils were water soluble, which allows for good shading, if you are good at doing that.  I am just learning.  I am a sucker for Derwent things and would buy the lot if I could afford it or find the space for it.

The base card and the blue card I used for mounting it were pearlescent.  The photo does not reflect the colours too well.  The base card is actually much darker and more coppery that it looks, and picked out the colour of the tree trunks really well. 

One of my targets that I had set myself for this year was to get back some of the skill I had so long ago for drawing.  I used to love it, but gave up, mainly due to poor art teaching at high school, where I always ruined my careful drawing by having to paint it with crude school poster paints.  So I gave up art totally.  I do hope art teaching is much better in schools these days.

I was pleased with myself for not giving up with this card.  I suppose I cheated slightly.  I drew it in my sketch book, then scanned the pencil sketch onto the computer before printing out four copies on watercolour card.  That did take the pressure off of possibly ruining my only copy.

Please come along this month and have a go at this Tropical Shores challenge on Craft A Scene.  If I can do it, then anyone can.  There is always a way round to get a reasonable result.  Anyone who wants to follow my example and scan your precious drawing and is unsure how to do it, just email me and I will do my best to help.  If you have a computer, you almost certainly have software that came with it that will do the job.