Contrasting past and present bat paintings this week to gauge how my technique has changed. The biggest change I’ve made is that I no longer apply strong colours straight to the paper — which was a huge mistake, my past ‘technique’ was more reliant on luck rather than observation.
After losing a little bit of confidence painting big cats, I decided to retreat to smaller A5 cold pressed paper to paint this Mallard Duckling. I used to have a real problem with making animal drawings cute enough, but with time and practice I think this piece worked out.
My Lynx's on the other hand, did not work out. Discovering my strengths in painting is still really tough and I have a major problem with planning, I often sit wondering with a near finished piece — now what? And then overwork the piece to death. But the colours are nice, so I've decided to embarrass myself by displaying the results!
The more successful mallard ducking painting is available in my shop.
This large hare was created using lots of smudgy charcoal, I started with a simple scribbly hare drawing in which I defined more with charcoal before outlining in Indian ink. I then added white pigment to highlight the hares face and a few details.
I dragged a rubber across the lower back of the hare to get those distinct white streaks to come through.
I've painted a couple of different seahorses, the long-snouted seahorse (in red) and giraffe seahorse (in green is available in my shop). I've painted these in watercolour and ink on cold pressed paper.
I painted these to compare against my 2014 painting of an 'emerging seahorse', although I'm not entirely happy they way these two turned out I can definitely see an (albeit slow) improvement.
This is my wispy wolf painted in mainly Brusho pigment and watercolour on cold pressed paper. This A3 piece took eight attempts to get right — the other pieces I created had huge colour layering mistakes because patience isn't something I possess. Hopefully the mounting cost of watercolour paper will smart enough for me to slow down!
This is another German Shepherd commissioned for charity, your more typical black and tan variety created using more charcoal, Indian ink and white pigment.
I'm so pleased I have been asked to produce work specifically in charcoal as I'd likely never have picked up my willow sticks and give it a real try.
The particular willow charcoal sticks I use are the Coates brand, the charcoal pencils I used to add some scratchier details are the Derwent brand on A3 Seawhite cartridge paper.
I was commissioned to create a piece of artwork to raise funds for German Shepherd rescue efforts, though this was a draft piece (as I’m a bit rusty) — I'm quite pleased with the results, the first time I've touched charcoal for five years!
This soppy black German Shepherd is made with fineliner scribbles, Indian ink, and a variety of charcoal pencils/willow sticks.
This is the initial stages of a cardinal finch painting on cold pressed paper. I want to conserve the drawing so I'll try and keep the colours as dull and distracting as possible, using only the areas highlighted as focal points. The areas of colour are water soluble marker pens with a fine liner and ink base drawing.
I've been looking at a few different bird species to draw and paint, and I've been disappointed that I haven't been hitting it on the head with good drawings lately. So I decided to dive in and paint a crow from a mediocre drawing to test out more brusho as I was feeling impatient.
This painting was created in watercolour, Indian ink and brusho. Brusho gives such vibrant colour with the smallest application, it's replacing my need for ink at the moment just because it's easier to remove from paper and more forgiving than inks, perfect for blundering Lauras. This crow is available in my shop.
A simple rat painting this time, using Indian inks and a touch of watercolour for the eyes, ears, paws and tail.
This little rat is A5 and is saturated with spray starch so I can start experimenting a little more with the brusho pigment, as it has a variety of qualities I’d like to explore!
Accompanied with this rat is my rabbit who was drawn using a HB grade pencil.
I have found my new water-based plaything — Brusho!
Brusho is described as ‘crystal colour’ and it is a pigment which you can apply to your paper which when wet gives dramatic results.
This rat is painted mostly in brusho, I shook some of this pigment onto my cold pressed paper — flicked some water at the dry pigment and colour was born! This rat painting is available in my shop.
Using a cold press watercolour block instead of loose sheets I could throw as much water at this piece as I liked and the paper remained relatively buckle free!
This hummingbird was created using watercolour, inks and white pigment.
This little frog was painted on cold pressed paper using watercolours and inks, along with one white pen to pick out a few warts. This little A5 frog is available in my shop.
A monitor lizard drawn on cold pressed paper using Indian inks. Once dry, I plan to paint him pretty using watercolours and Colorex inks!
Here’s my take on the little green headed tanager, which can be found in the forests of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. This bird was painted on Yupo paper using mostly inks and water soluble pens.
I produced several green headed tanager paintings on hot, cold and Yupo watercolour paper, but Yupo was definitely my stronger version. This particular piece is available in my shop.
You can even see his little tongue!
I chose to paint some bees over the holidays as there seems to be a lot of the little guys around. There was one lying on the ground exhausted in front of where we live, so we took him in and fed him sugar syrup from a spoon to give him a bit of a boost to get where he was going.
These winter bees were done on cold pressed and Yupo watercolour paper using Indian ink and watercolours and both are available in my shop.
I was commissioned a new squirrel piece and in typical Laura fashion — I get carried away and
produce three!
There’s a surprising amount of orange in the grey squirrels fur, so I’ve over dramatised this to create a fiery effect using watercolours and inks.
The homeless couple of squirrels are now inhabiting my shop, whilst the other lives happily across the pond.
Another American blue jay, they are just so beautiful!
I was playing around with drips and swirls of blue colour using inks and watercolour on Yupo paper. The Indian ink really bubbles and swirls when diluted with water and leaves a really interesting gritty stain on the paper when dry.
Since moving to Yupo I have started to miss some of the qualities of my cold pressed papers, so I broke some out and had a go at a pygmy kestrel.
He’s not finished but since the major buckling of the cold pressed paper, I thought I’d stop mid stroke and try and flatten him out before resuming flooding the paper with water — I’ve been taking major liberties with how much cold pressed paper can take, forgetting that it isn’t my forgiving Yupo.
This snap shot into a painting before it’s finished may aid me in future paintings, to maybe hint to me when to stop before I overwork something to death ...
The Virginia opossum or common opossum is the only marsupial found in Canada and the United States. They are little scavengers and what is most interesting to me is that they can cleverly play dead by prompting unpleasant smells, foaming from the mouth and baring teeth.
This is known as ‘play possum’, and it is comforting as when I was looking out for a new beast to paint I came across a lot of dramatically dead possums — very convincing!
This painted opossum is on Yupo paper and was created using a variety of inks and watercolours and is available in my shop.
