This artwork was done in a Hahnemühle Grey Book. Be sure to on Wednesday morning for the Life Imitates Doodles Weekly Wednesday giveaway. A Grey Book is just one of the items in this week’s prize package!
Photo reference courtesy of veverkolog on Pixabay.
I love the Shoebill. They’re just so darn prehistoric looking! You can see the dinosaur in this bird.
This painting is valuable to me because it made me realize why I was unhappy with some of my negative paintings and why I loved others. The technique works better with large areas of color and I used narrow leaves and grasses – I should have done larger palm leaves and broad grasses to let more of the lighter colors show through.
The colors used were Cadmium Yellow Primrose, Pyrrole Red Medium, Ultramarine Blue, and Payne’s Gray.
This was painted with the Qor Watercolors, a Princeton Neptune Quill size 8 and a Neptune Velvetouch Long Round Size 8. Although the Grey Book has toned grey paper and is formulated more for pen, pencil and colored pencil, it works surprisingly well with watercolor.
Grey Book
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- KENMORE CAMERA
- BEAR IMAGES PHOTOGRAPHIC
- LOOKING GLASS PHOTO
- Blick Art Materials
Not listed online, you must ask about it
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- Meininger Art Material
Golden QoR Watercolor, Mini Half Pan Set of 12 Colors
Princeton Velvetouch Long Round Brush Size 8
Life Imitates Doodles 
love how the grey paper worked so well with the shoebill.
Thank you, Alice! I’m surprised every time I use watercolor in the Cappuccino or Grey book. The colors stay so bright. It helps that I use the Qor paints because they are intense.
I’m surprised by how bright the colours look on the grey paper. Nice work!
It is surprising. Even yellow stays yellow and bright with very little greening. It helps, I think, that I’m using Qor colors because they are very intense, even though they are transparent.