Yin Yang Koi – mixed media

This week’s art is a mixed media piece. It is an ink drawing with black watercolour shading and a digital background.

I began using geometry to get the rotational symmetry I was after in the piece…

Then I worked into this the fins and details of the two fish. Getting the symmetry close enough was difficult but satisfying in the end…

Once I had an outline I began working on the details. Here’s a photo of the end stage of the drawing when the first layer of watercolour was complete…

Once the rest of the watercolour was done – pushing the rendering to make the fish more 3D and the tails more shapely – I photographed the image and began working on it digitally. I added a drop shadow and a randomised background. Here’s the final picture…

Cactus Flower – Watercolour and watercolour pencils

This week I noticed that one of my cacti had come into flower. Although this one flowers quite often it still feels like a small stab of joy when it happens. I decided to have a go at painting it. Here is how it looked in real life…

I began with an outline pencil sketch…

Really I just wanted to lay it out and move some of the cactus bodies to arrange them in a way I felt would work.

Then I painted some very basic colour onto the layout. This was to serve as a background to the watercolour pencil work I wanted to do on top. Unfortunately I have lost the photo I took of this stage.

Once my base colours were dry I used some watercolour coloured pencils to draw out the petals of the flower and to shade the cactus bodies. Then I used a brush and water to convert this pencil work into paint. It worked well as a method to closely control the paint. Then I added my cactus spikes in white gouache.

Here’s the finished picture…

Elephant’s Eye

This week I made a drawing of an elephant’s eye using ink, white gouache paint and pencils. I love elephants. They are such beautiful creatures.

Here’s the final image…

Small art projects

This week I didn’t manage to make any art so here are two smaller projects I made a few months ago.

The first is an ink and watercolour design for a “Light Tree”…

The second is a small coloured pencil drawing of a woodland glade…