Water and kids are two of my favorite subjects for colored pencil paintings.  These children are exploring in the headwaters of Turtle Creek, just outside of Turtle Lake in far northern Winchester Wisconsin.  Isn't this just how you picture the perfect summer vacation? It seems like a lot of people thought so, because when I first posted the painting to my Facebook page, Color in Light - Cindy Mottl's Colored Pencil and Watercolor Art, it reached almost 2,000 people thanks to all the likes, shares and comments.  That surprised me because I wasn't sure I had accomplished my goals of capturing the spirit of those children and the feel of freedom in a summer day in the magic of the Northwoods.  Artists are hard on themselves!  In this piece I used a combination of Prismacolor, Luminance and Polychromo pencils.  The pencils are chosen by the color choices and the type of mark that pencil in that color in that brand makes, rather than the idea that one brand is superior to another.  My paper for this is Stonehenge white.  Like the pencils, I choose my paper to work with my subject matter.  Stonehenge is relatively smooth for good detail and takes lots of layers of color.  Color lifts easily with an electric eraser or a piece of tacky putty, allowing for corrections or to bring back pops of light.  Some of the white dots where scratched in with an embossing stylus.