Tale Of A Small Dog...

I finally finished this yesterday - took much longer to 'colour in' than I thought it would.  This is a private commission, not for use in anything further I don't think.

Drawn in pen and ink, then coloured with Japanese watercolours which are very like gouache except they can be lifted and/or re-wet & worked on the paper once they have dried.

Amaryllis...

The amaryllis I was given for Christmas is in bloom and quite magnificent.  I thought I'd have a go at painting it and try and rouse myself out of the awful artist's block I'm going through at the moment.  It was quite fun but had to be quick as the second bud is visibly opening and the first one moving as I painted.

I used some of the Japanese gold watercolour I got a year ago for the background - I likeit!  I can't decide which is better though, the whole painting or cropping off the dribbly bits.  What do you think?

Whiling Away Some Time...

I have two commissions in the wings but I suddenly realised both needed larger paper/canvas than I have so I had to order some.  While waiting for it to be delivered, I painted this - bear 151, Walker.  I used a snapshot I took on the Explore.org webcam a while back as reference and painted with some Japanese watercolours that I got for Christmas.  They are a bit different from our regular watercolours, much softer and very re-wettable once on the paper.  I liked the soft effect I was able to get on the bear's fur - not intentional, just the way the paint dried!

This will be for sale in my Etsy shop shortly.

Experimentation...

For Christmas I was given a box of Japanese watercolours that I had asked for - I'd seen them on the internet and was taken by the selection of bright colours and also the fact that there were metallic colours as well.  This is the first painting done using these paints - I chose a macaw in order to get to use pretty much all the colours available!  These paints were like a cross between gouache and watercolour, a bit chalky and not quite as bright as I had anticipated.  Great fun to use though as the colours stayed quite true and there didn't seem to be any muddiness when painting one colour over with another.

I didn't use the metallics on this painting, but have tried them out and was quite impressed with the effects obtainable although I;m not sure when I will use them!

Next up - paid work!