Cockatoo background

So I've worked a little more on my picture. I like the new colourful background, but I'm also missing the loss of the white paper. I feel like I've gone overboard with colour again, as I feared I would!

It's not finished, but I may give it a few days to think about my next move.

Cockatoos

After finding a wonderful picture online, of a bunch of cockatoos feeding, I decided to select only two birds from opposite sides of the tree to represent. While I love the cockatoos, it was mostly for the NSW Christmas bush in bloom I wanted to capture...

Forgive the darkness of the photo. As the cockatoos aren't surrounded by foliage yet, it's difficult to see their definition. I'm using watercolour pencil and its still a work in progress.

I like the sparsity of this portrait so far, having all that white space, and yet I know it needs a lot more colour added too. I'm experimenting with colour, choosing lavender for the shading of the cockatoos, and trying to incorporate magenta as much as possible, in both the flowers and shading of the foliage (to come).

I'm worried I'll stuff it up, so I'm going as gently with the colour application as possible. Any new work is approached with much thought, because I could easily drown it with flat colour with little ability to lift it - as I learned with my bush creek landscape portrait.

It's a very peaceful piece to work on.

Chicken

After falling in love with all things "chicken", several years ago, I made a sketch of one. I stumbled across it in some paperwork recently, and remembered what was going through my head.

I wanted to capture that unique personality which only belongs to chickens, so my pencil-strokes were deliberately unrefined - scratchy like a chicken, lol.

I didn't mind that it looked scribly, in fact, I wanted to duplicate that look with another medium. I thought ink & some kind of wash, would work best. Upon checking my supplies I discovered some black ink and watercolour paints.

I would draw the ink in first, then apply watercolour over the top. For this, I used a medium tapered brush.

Notice the paper buckling? I'll come back to that point, but overall, it wasn't what I was attempting to capture. The brushstrokes seemed too chunky and awkward on the page. But it was worth another try...

This time I used a smaller brush and lessened the intensity of the ink details. It seemed to help, but it still looked like a cartoon. At this point, I went online to look for some tips, and found a great video on "line & wash".

It runs for just over thirty-minutes, but is filled with a lot of incredible pointers on how to use watercolour and draw freestyle lines. The finished landscape looks gorgeous at the end too.

Well that video certainly cleared up some important details. First, I discovered I was using watercolour paints on dry paper. I only had sketch paper, that buckles with moisture - so watercolour wasn't going to work.

But I had the next best thing! Watercolour pencils. These can be used dry, in a sketch book, with a little water afterwards to blend. For the freestyle ink, I also had to ditch the brush, and use a black (waterproof) pen.


So, third time's the charm...

I was much happier with the result, as it was more in-line with the original concept.

What I learned is, sketch pads are great for experimentation, but very limited in what mediums they will work with. Anything involving moisture (except watercolour pencils) can't really be used.

I also learned I still like chickens!

Owl

We've had a few surprises crop up lately (relatively good ones) but meeting those obligations meant a large time commitment from me. Never let it be said that I cannot multi-task however, because as 4.30 this morning, when my son decided he was going to wake-up, I did some drawing.

It's a simple watercolour pencil illustration, from something my daughter described to me a few years ago. At a local craft market, she saw an owl at a stall I must've missed. She was enamoured with it, and so I thought of making her one. Between us we made a simple sketch - but I never got around to making it.

This morning, I turned that wee picture into an illustration to remind me owls don't need to sleep at night - and that I would do something with my daughters conversation with me.

I like him. His expression hints at knowing my toddler is nocturnal too.

When my daughter saw the picture a few hours later, laying on the breakfast bar, she knew straight away. "Hey, that's my owl," she said. Then it was time to make toast.