Artwork-Zebra Zensations Technical Pen and QoR watercolor on a Hahnemühle Cold Pressed Watercolor Postcard. Brushes: Jack Richeson Richeson Grey Matters Synthetic Watercolor Flat 1/4Photo courtesy of Larisa-K on Pixabay.
My hubby took a butterfly in his lunch bag.
Did you know that the caterpillar lives to eat, while the butterfly lives to mate?
Artwork-Zebra Zensations Technical Pen and Daniel Smith watercolor on a Hahnemühle Cold Pressed Watercolor Postcard. Brushes: Princeton Neptune Round, size 8. Photo reference courtesy of skeeze on Pixabay.
Did you know that there are no blue birds -it’s all an illusion. Some birds are gray, but the way the light creates magic with the protein molecules in the feathers and voila! the human eye sees BLUE! This is called a structured color.
And by the way, it isn’t just flamingoes that get their color from the food they eat. Red, yellow, and orange feathers are created by carotenoids that the birds get from flowers, roots, seeds, and fruits.
Artwork-Zebra Zensations Technical Pen and QoR watercolor on a Hahnemühle Cold Pressed Watercolor Postcard. Brushes: Jack Richeson Richeson Grey Matters Synthetic Watercolor Flat 1/4 Photo courtesy of Schmid-Reportagen on Pixabay.
My hubby took a bunch of bananas in his lunchbag. You may have noticed that some of my postcards for the lunch bag, lately, have been of something other than animals. Hubby prefers animals but I feel I’m going stale because sometimes I only have time to paint his card and I want to paint other things. So we compromised. I’ll still be doing mostly animals, but the odd item like this will pop up on occasion.
Did you know that the banana plant is not a tree, but rather a type of herb. In fact, they are the largest of herbaceous flowering plants. Their ‘trunk’ is called a “false stem” or pseudostem.
Artwork-Zebra Zensations Technical Pen, Daniel Smith watercolor and ARTEZA Real Brush Pens on a Hahnemühle Cold Pressed Watercolor Postcard. Brushes: Princeton Neptune Round, size 8.
This painting is what is known as a ‘line and wash’ because it is drawn in pen first and then painted with watercolor.
Before You Start
The BBC has been advertising their new series, Seven Worlds, One Planet, which features the Golden Snub Nosed monkey. Every time the commercial plays, hubby asks me for a postcard painting of one. Trouble is, there aren’t any photos of them on any of the photo sites I use for reference.
This means lots of prep, because I have to come up with my own composition, researching the subject and figuring out how to draw it without taking too much from any one photo.
Recently, I received a Hahnemühle 1584 Notebook (review to come in the near future) which has dot-grid paper in it. I decided it would be perfect for my studies.
First, I did a study working out a pose. I used the dot-grid to help me figure out proportions without using a ruler or getting too worried about being exact (sorry for the shade along the gutter, this was done on the first page).
On the next page, I did a study to figure out proportions of the face.
While working on this, I put some thought into what I wanted from the finished painting, and what ‘gotchas’ there might be.
I was choosing to do a baby, so I wanted to capture that halo of fuzzy baby fur. I also knew that even though in real life the snub-nose is cute, it also looks a lot like the nose on a skull.
Pencil
(This scan is darkened so you can see the pencil lines. You should pencil lines in lightly)
Using my studies from the 1584 notebook, I penciled in the monkey, focusing on proportions and placement of facial features and limbs.
Not sure if you’re up to drawing this? Art Tutor has a great grid program that will help by applying a grid to your uploaded photo. You can also crop and adjust color and value.
Pen
Values= dark to light. When you establish your values, you are deciding where the darkest areas are, and some of the important mid-tones.
The babies have very light fur, so I kept the pen drawing fairly minimal, mostly mapping out the sections of the fur.
Paint
I decided that the delightful blue face on these monkeys was closest to a cerulean blue. Since I also intended to use Buff Titanium, an off-white that easily turns green when mixed with blue, I had to use some caution.
The monkey’s fur was done with a layer of the buff titanium, and a mix of Aussie Red Gold and Monte Amiata, leaving the lightest areas the white of the postcard.
I used Cerulean blue for the sky, and various mixes of lavender, Rose of Ultramarine, Aussie Red Gold and the Monte Amiata for the rest of the background. Then I let it all dry.
I’ve never used the color lifting method to try and get that fuzzy halo furry look and decided to experiment. I began to lift color all around the edges of the fur. This is done by wetting the brush, lightly brushing where I wanted to lift color, blotting the brush on a paper towel, then dabbing in the same area to pick up the water just applied. Some of the color comes up too.
Unhappy with the background (I didn’t plan it – I usually don’t, but should have this time since I didn’t have a reference), I fussed with it quite a bit until I spilled water on the lower left corner, and then couldn’t get it to take color.
I let it all dry.
With a purple Arteza watercolor brush pen (the type where the pen is prefilled with watercolor), I added color and pumped up my values so there was greater contrast. The color in these brushes is more of a dye, so it takes where the paper is too damaged to accept pigment watercolor. I used it throughout the trees to tie the colors together.
I decided that I wanted lighter fur around the face, and I didn’t want to lift more so I grabbed my Uniball white signo and added some white ink.
Overall, this took far longer than my usual daily postcard – about 4 hours.
Tools
And Where You Can Buy Them
Hahnemühle 1584 Notebook (this is a new item, so it may not be listed on websites yet)
Artwork: Daniel Smith Watercolor on Hahnemühle cold press Watercolor postcard.
One of the wonders of the Internet, photos of these real life little sea slugs that resemble sheep went viral last year. So, of course, I had to paint one. These guys are one of very non-plant critturs that can photosynthesize.
I’ll have a Fun & Easy step-out showing how to draw one coming up in the near future.
Artwork-Zebra Zensations Technical Pen and Da Vinci watercolor on a Hahnemühle Cold Pressed Watercolor Postcard. Brushes: Princeton Neptune Round, size 8.
I hope you’ve all had a fabulous day, no matter what holiday you celebrate or whether you celebrate anything at all. Joy to the World means Joy to everyone!
Did you know that polar bears don’t really hibernate? Winter is actually their best hunting season because they use the sea ice that forms to find their prey.
During the lean hunting season of the summer, these bears go in and out of a state of ‘walking hibernation’, lowering their metabolism, breathing and heart rate when food is scarce and coming out of it when well-fed. Females enter this state while in the den during pregnancy and while nursing young.
Artwork-Zebra Zensations Technical Pen and Da Vinci watercolor on a Hahnemühle Cold Pressed Watercolor Postcard. Brushes: Princeton Neptune Round, size 8.
Sure. Everyone knows about Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen and even Rudolph. But what about Hatter? You know, the reindeer that has to carry replacement hats for the ones that Santa loses to the wind, chimneys, forgetfulness and aggressive Christmas Tree branches.
