Thursday, July 09, 2009

fairy queen : watercolor stage 1




I started out this piece meaning to not go much further than a very light watercolor, just simple washes but of course I'd screw up one area and paint to dark or too finished and have to work over the whole piece to make it match.

I got to the end of the painting at this stage and was unsatisfied. The brown pencil I typically work in just didn't feel right, the upper right side of the painting really bothered me -- the grass was proving to be tough to get and I hadn't been able to get the lanterns to glow like I wanted yet. I had an idea, and we'll see it in tomorrow's post.

Next post : final watercolor

2 comments:

ThinkBaker said...

So.. at this stage, are you going back over the watercolor with your pencil? or is that still the original layer of pencil?

You say "brown Pencil"

Is this like a verithin Prismacolor colored pencil? Col-erase? Graphite???

erielalavelle said...

I like the way it came out, you do good fantasy work (love The Hobbit one as well). I've been there with the lanterns.. one tip for painting them: don't. Outline it, work towards the outline from the outside with lighter washes, leave the lantern itself completely white. When the rest of the painting is 100% finished, put the lightest wash of yellow you can manage into the lantern, and suddenly it will pop like anything you could have imagined. Keep it up :).