My Two Cents for the Penny Experiment

I was hamstrung for a while waiting to grab supplies to finish up the original art card project, with it being insane and Christmas time. With waiting to get my hands on some decent cardstock to mount the Copic drawing I eventually made, a second wave to the Penny Art Project began. This time they were calling for people to create books to send out, to be filled by total strangers and sent back in. I loved the idea, so I volunteered for that as well.

Being that I have only my own drive and ideas on what to do with my time now, creating this art has really helped me out in motivating me to get up, reminding me that I'm halfway decent with both pencil and paint. I can literally do anything with my days right now, and I plan on revisiting the art supply drawers to work on other things. If I can also help out others while doing it, so much the better.

With the art postcards, I did an initial mock-up in watercolor. I really, really liked the first try, which is rare for me. Behold, the waaay too big for an art card original. It's something like 9 x 12, done on cold press watercolor paper with watercolor pencils and then filled out with Niji water pens. Did I say I'm ticked with this? Because I am very, very tickled with this.
I actually considered taking this to the printer's and having it reproduced because I liked it so much. But then I realized that I would get a rather wimpy cardstock for my troubles and it might not reproduce the colors true. Instead, I decided to be pleased with my apparently grasp of fish anatomy and moved forward. I do want to do something with this bigger sample, though. Maybe offer it up to the project to be auctioned off as well later, or sell it myself and donate all of the funds to it.
I then moved on and redid it in Copics, scaling the size down markedly. I'll be honest, I couldn't get all the detail of the original in there and this disappointed me a bit. I went ahead anyway and put the main image down, then went in and filled in a few of the smaller details with Pitt artist markers. Then, with great trepidation, I filled in the opaque white on the drawing to give it highlights and reflections. I was so scared I would ruin it, but... you know, it actually gave it some added depth.
After I was finally able to acquire cardboard, cardstock and some art papers to cover the whole mess, I once again freaked out a little bit and constructed the base to mount it on. I was concerned about the paper warping after seeing the same thing occur when I mounted test paper with Copic drawings on it to heavy art paper.
Much to my sadness, it STILL warped and rippled, but in the end it added something to the water effect. Fully completed and dried, it looks fairly decent. I'm planning on getting it in the mail on Monday using super-speedy mail. Behold, my koi in a wishing pond, and the penny descending that carries the wish for the success of the Penny Experiment.

And a view of the back.
I just love that paper I used for the backing. I love even more that I got to sign it with that new last name. :)