Wine Cork Watercolor- Parador "Castle"

I haven't gotten any painting done and realized it has been a week since my last post!  I have been waiting for my face to stop hurting after an especially "uncomfortable" 3+ hours at the dentist last Friday.  I was going in for an extraction and thought I'd be a little uncomfortable for a day or so and back to painting. Wrong.  Be very wary if you ever need to have a tooth pulled that has had a root canal.  Brittle roots- need I say more?

I did this cork watercolor a few weeks ago for #47 in my 100 Paintings Challenge.  I love the castle stamped on the cork.  I don't know if it represents the winery or another castle, but I loved it.  It is always a surprise to get a great cork, since you can't see it until you have opened the bottle.  I haven't been to this winery yet, it was a nice delivery from our Napa wine club.  The wine was very good, so it isn't all about the great cork!  Just a bonus if you are an artist with a thing for painting corks.

Works in Progress- Two New Watercolor Sketches

I think you can see why I needed to paint this wine label!

The castle design on this cork is exactly why I love to paint corks!

I am in the mood to paint corks again and chose these as my latest.  When I saw the label on the wine bottle I just had to buy it- didn't even care if the wine was going to be good, or not!  As an added bonus, the wine was very tasty! The wine is a Petite Sirah from Michael-David and another good one from the many available nearby in Lodi, California.  I loved the colorful, fun label and there is even an elephant on the end of the cork.  You might be getting the impression that we chose our wines because of the label art, but that is not exactly it. The label may be the reason I pick up a bottle in the first place, so it does matter. The cork is always just a pleasant surprise if there is a good design since you can't see it until you uncork the bottle.  As artists, we all have our favorite subjects to paint- and wine corks just happen to be interesting and fun to me!