Blog

This is done from a old photo I took in Hawaii at a botanical gardens. The white petals on white paper were a challenge!

Had a full day with nice weather that I could use for painting and decided to get out the oils! The nice weather is important because these paints smell and I prefer to have the window open.

It has been a long time since I painted in oil and it took a little while to get back in the groove. I took the photo I was working from last spring at Saguaro National Park.

I’m home with a cough today so decided to play more with the koi watercolour paints, I really like their vibrancy, although I can’t mix colors as much as I can with the Prang paints. This top image is from the Atalanta zoo and their two panda cubs.

This second one is another painting of our betta fish Inky. I was hoping the Koi watercolours would work better to capture his blue color. I regret adding in the aquarium gravel at the bottom.

Enjoying a quiet day with the fish, ie social distancing. I actually think I have gotten better at painting fish since starting this series, but still more improvement to go. Really enjoying the koi watercolours, especially the reds and pinks.

Loving this set. As you may  know  I am a pretty devout user of Prang watercolours They cheap and really easy to mix colors to get the hue you want. These are a little less forgiving about mixing more than two colors, and layering wet on wet.  But I love that ultramarine blue and all the yellow options.

 

The preliminary sketch below was done with water colour pens, and is much smaller than the final work. I loved the vibrancy of the pens, however I really struggled with how may colors there were! I’m used to having a limited pallet and blending colors. I found it difficult to have to keep changing pens. For the larger piece I went back to by student prang set, fully in my comfort zone.  The betta on the right turned out rather chubby, however I still like the piece overall ^_^.

This one turned out  overworked especially some of the areas on the face, however I do like her expression.

 

Quick sketch of our puppy George in this morning

 

This small sketch was to celebrate the re-bloom of our white and green lady slipper orchid! It had been two years since the last flower. After overworking the betta I may have kept things too light, ended up reworking in (in the top version)

This ended up fairly overdone. I wasn’t as careful as I should have been with the black on fins, and the lines are too thick. That being said I have really been enjoying having a pet fish again!