Sunday, 27 January 2019

Polly the mouse with lavender

Hello everyone, today I have a little painting of Polly the Mouse to share with you all.

She’s created on Bockingford watercolour paper which is 300 gsm. I love this paper as there is very little warping due to how heavy the paper is, it has some texture but not too much and the pigment is absorbed a little but doesn’t sink into the paper making it dull. You can add many layers of pigment and it stands up well to other mediums such as pencils, pastels etc. I haven’t used it for acrylics but imagine it would handle the medium very well.

Next onto the paint I used, in this this case it was Sennelier watercolour tubes, which is one of my favourites along side Daniel Smiths. I bought a set of colours recommended by Billy Showell, a watercolour artist specialising in Botanical art. I also use brushes designed by her, my set consists of a 2, 4, 6 in both sable and synthetic and I love them all. I use a ceramic pallet as I love how the colour mixes and is easily removed from it.

So to start!

I first taped. My paper to my mat and sketched my composition.

I added a water glaze to the whole area of the background and started dropping in colour, blues, purples at the top and blues and greens at the bottom.

I mix my own greens (mixing video coming up soon)

Once the colour was added I then splashed on water to get the colour flowing. I dried and then repeated the process. The 3rd layer was also a repeat but more concentrated colour was used in blues and greens and then with a straw I blew the little puddles to form the branches of the trees. I love the unpredictability of this as you have to give up the control. Lastly I added the leaves with a no.4 synthetic brush.

Started to add more branches and leaves, as well as stems for the flowers. I was almost scared to touch Polly as I really liked the background and didn’t want to spoil it.

The lavender is painted loosely to fit in with the whole composition as I wanted Polly to be the focal point.

Okay so now onto Polly, I had to be brave! I mixed up the colours using a small piece of paper to test I had the colours I wanted. And started building up the layers. I find that working on small objects is difficult due to my eyes, even with glasses the detail isn’t as sharp (so I have invested in a light/magnifying glass)

My painting skills are not as good as I would like so decided to move onto pencil for the detail. I used lightfast by Derwent. Starting on Polly I started to build up the texture of her fur, and the catkins.