MITTEN FOUND!
7.5 x 11
inches on 300lb rough watercolour paper
Various watercolor brands,
acrylic paint, colored pencils
with a touch of red gouche for mitten
stripes
I
started this illustration right after finishing WinterGlow. I wanted
another shot at pouring on tree trunks and snow shadows. I didn't
really have a composition in mind, but figured I'd see where this
went. I quickly “sketched” off a tree trunk and the snow portion
of the shadows in misket (laytex rubber liquid mask quickly applied
with a wooden stirrer), let it dry then poured a blue mix
(phthalo,dk. cobalt and a bit of purple)over the tree trunk, and
continued pouring on down to the snow shadows with cobalt only.
After
this had dried I pulled off the misket lines and found I'd let a bit
of the wash drift over into the sky.......but I kinda like the “wood
cut” look this “watercolour oopsie” left. I marked out a
horizon line in more dots and daubs of misket and laid in some warm
pastels, yellows, rose madder genuine with just a touch of cobalt in
a very wet wash for a background line of trees.
I went
back in to the snow shadows and decided to “soften” the hard
edges left with the misket, so I took a stencil brush (a very short
stiff bristle brush) and with clear water rubbed the paper to remove
some of the hard edged watercolors. During this I noticed that a
little patch of misket had taken a bit of my watercolour paper up
when I'd removed it. Oooopsie! So I drew in a few lines for branches
and made it into a snow covered bush.
I
decided that I wanted a little boy standing on the left to balance
out the composition, and that he needed to be dressed in a warm
colour (pun intended). Warm clothes, yes! since he's out in the snow,
but also a warm colour, red in this case. I wanted a warm colour to
balance the cool blues elsewhere in the picture. I then turned my
attention to the snow around the yet to be drawn in little boy's
feet. I wanted to show the roughed up snow that the little boy's
boots had kicked up, but all that was there was poured blues. Oopsie!
So I drug out my handy white acrylic paints and smudged in a bunch of
snow over the watercolour. The acrylic paint often won't quite cover
a dark colour underneath.....which in this case was a definite plus.
It made the snow just that more believable. Since I had the white
acrylic out, I went ahead and put a bit of “snow” on the oooopsie
bush.
Now I
decided what I was going to use for the little boy. I'd found a
really old family snapshot of a little one looking down at his feet.
He was all bundled up in snow gear. This little one would
compositionally “connect” the snow shadows and the background
trees. I sketched him in in watercolours and added some textures in
with coloured pencils. I just indicated his face and hair without
too many details. But I still needed some reason for him to be
looking down. I settled on a lost mitten that he'd found. The
mitten really needed to stand out, so I grabbed a tube of red gouche
that I knew had a lot of “kick” in the color department. I
finished the mitten and called it done!
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