This will be a brief summary
of the past two weeks of painting the rabbit so you have an idea of what we did
to get to this point.
First, I drew on the rabbit.
I wanted to make him big enough on the paper so he is the focal point but left
enough room in front of him so he can move. This is a “landscape” (horizontal)
format vertical or portrait would make him too small in the painting and give
too much importance to the rocks and weeds. Watch his proportions as you draw
him, his body is just slightly more than 2 lengths of his head and his ears are
the same length as his head (I measure from between his ears to his nose).
Once your drawing is on wet
the entire paper. Don’t worry about the rabbit, he has a lot of the surrounding
colors in him, it helps him hide there is also on actual white in the photo so
we don’t need to protect or save white, everything gets color at this point.
I used A LOT of water with
these first colors so they were just basically tints. They need to be very
light because these colors will be the highlights in the finished painting.
Remember in watercolor we paint from light to dark which mean to start very
light and work in layers. If you are not a patient person, watercolor may not
be the best medium for you because you will need patience.
Onto my wet paper I added
these tints of yellow, orange, sienna even tints of gray I made by adding a
tiny touch or purple to the yellow, then I let it dry completely.
When it was dry – and it
needs to be totally dry for this next step – I added some masking fluid to a
few areas that I thought I wanted to stay very light. This isn’t necessary but
the masking does make it a bit easier so you can just paint and not have to
worry about painting around something.
When the masking was dry, I
added more of the same colors to most areas but this time I was a bit more
selective. I didn’t add more to the rabbit at this time but I did add more
general color in the rock areas and weed areas and avoided areas where I
thought that light might hit I had my photo right in front of me so I wasn’t
guessing. I added more gray tint into the shadows again, this can be the exact
same color you used before because watercolor is accumulative and will look darker
or more intense in the final painting.
I have not started to paint
weeds yet I am just establishing light ad dark – sun and shadow – weeds will
come later.
The rabbit I under painted
with gray. Again I am not going for my dark darks yet but I do want to start to
establish highlights and shadows. The gray can be the yellow and purple you
were using or a mix of blue, sienna and
a touch of purple keeping it to the blue side/ Please have the photo there to
look at when you are doing this and just paint what you see even if it doesn’t
make sense right now, it will later on. Be sure to use water to lighten when
you need to and always follow the direction of the fur growth with your brush
strokes.
I think this was week 1 but
there may be some crossover.
At this point we start
getting more specific and we will be using both positive and negative painting.
Positive painting means that
you are painting the thing itself lit the rabbit or the weed; negative painting
means that you are painting the area AROUND the thing like the rock behind the
rabbit or the shadows behind the weeds. This is a very important technique we
use in watercolor and it goes back to what I said before about painting from
light to dark. When we negative paint we are darkening the area behind
something so it will look lighter in the end. You must have dark to show light
and using negative painting is one way we accomplish that goal in watercolor.
On the rabbit I continued to
use just the gray for now to intensify the shadows on the rabbit and to suggest
some of the features such as the light rings around his eye. I still followed
the fur growth. I also added some gray behind the rabbits face using negative
painting to add color to the rock leaving that one side of his face lighter.
Behind the rabbit are a
couple of very dark spaces under the rock but rather than paint it dark all at
once I negative painted using layers of a lighter gray. Each time I added a
layer, I painted around not only the rabbit but also I suggested weeds by painting
shapes to suggest a tangle of weeds, each time adding more weeds and the area
getting darker.
I also used the negative
painting in the weeds in front of the rabbit and in the shadows. This can take
time but you should be able to move around your painting as areas dry you can
go back over them.
Another technique which I am
not using because it means more drying time is to use the masking fluid on each
layer of color to make your weeds. It is up to you.
There are also some weeds
that are dark against the lighter rock that come up against the dark areas,
these weeds you can positive paint using a similar value to the area left in
the dark shadow, just continue them out into the light area use your liner or a
round brush if you have one.
