Adventures in Art |
There is a 52-Week Illustration Challenge hosted by some lovely Illustrators over in Australia. Basically, each week a theme is presented and illustrators around the world post their take of the theme on the Facebook platform for the challenge . The admins chose their favourites for each theme and share them on their blog. I have been wanting to participate for a while, and last night, the right combination of inspiration, energy, and time arose so I painted the frog on the left. It is a foot-flagging frog, which I learned about recently. When they vocalize they also extend their leg as a visual cue to potential mates! Fun stuff indeed :) I found it inspirational and decided it would be the perfect subject for the music-themed week of the challenge. I started with a quick sketch of the frog, then improved the sketch and filled the outlines in with a drawing pen. From there I put in the background with wet-in-wet watercolours. I love the softness and blends of colours that comes with wet-in-wet work. I mostly did blues and greens, but threw in some orange to make it more interesting. Then I put down the base layers of the mossy knoll before getting started on the frog. From there it was layering in the shadows and adding some colour to the highlights. After many layers I decided I needed more contrast in the image and chose to do an orange wash over the background, and a blue wash over the grassy knoll to add a bit of variation. The last step was adding a few more details to the frog, and adding my signature. I had a lot of fun working on the piece and am happy with the outcome. I'd like to work on better variation in the value in my painting. I am still shy of really dark colours, and often forget to leave white space, or almost white space in my pieces for interest. Overall, I can't wait for my next piece of inspiration for the illustration challenge. There is a side challenge that involves designing a children's book using the illustrations you create for the challenge, so I would like to maintain a common theme of the world's wonderful and wacky wildlife. Perhaps a cliché theme - but it is one that is endlessly inspiring to me.
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