Walker...again...

After several months of ennui regarding painting, I feel that I have got my enthusiasm back at last.  The Explore.org bear cams went down a week or so ago, so to counteract my withdrawal symptoms, I started a watercolour of the bear known as Walker using one of the snaps I took from the website.

I am really happy with how this one turned out - the background was painted with a load of splashy greens and browns over a little masking fluid, and with a sprinkle of salt to add texture.  It's always a gamble to do this, but this time it worked perfectly.  The bear took a while - he has an awful lot of fur!

This one will be in my Etsy shop soon once I have got a decent photograph in daylight (daylight?  What's that!!) as this photo has made the painting somewhat lighter than it actually is.

Up next - I don't know yet, but I am raring to go!

In the meantime, I have finally finished designing and writing the crochet patterns for Nudinits that have taken up half of this year.  Keep an eye out for them!
 

Walker's Water Beard...

This is what I have been working on for the past couple of weeks - Walker, one of the bears living at Brooks Falls, Alaska.  This has been painted in watercolour and is about twice the size of my usual paintings - I thought he merited a larger canvas as it were!

I'm debating on whether or not to put him up for sale now or enter him into an art competition/exhibition first.  It's been years since I entered a competition as I have been mainly working to commission.

Next up - commissioned work!

Love's Young Dream...

 I've really not had the time nor the inclination to paint lately - not sure what the problem is, too much lockdown perhaps.  However, I have managed to paint this, even though it took far longer than usual.  This is a watercolour of bear 151 Walker and bear 708 Amelia in a post coital snuggle.  This happened on the Explore.org web cam a couple of years ago.  I was under the impression (as were a lot of people I guess!) that once bears did the deed, they ambled off on their separate ways.  Not so in this case - Walker and Amelia spent quite a long time cuddled up on the grass in the sun, giving us webcam viewers ample time to snap away and take photos.  When I did get around to working on this, I really enjoyed it! It will possibly be for sale in my Etsy shop soon - I have someone already interested in it.

For a complete change, my next commission is an Alderney scene - can't wait, it's going to be difficult but I'm looking forward to it.

Walker...

 As I currently have no painting commissions and needed an escape from the general horror of life at the moment, I decided to paint bear 151 Walker using walnut ink.  Walnut ink is both good and bad to use.  On the one hand, it can be lifted from the paper when re-wetted, which makes altering slight mistakes easy.  On the other hand. it is very hard to get the depth of colour needed in some spots, even with countless applications.  So for the nose and eyes and a few areas of shading, I had to bring in a couple of Inktense pigment sticks in dark brown and black.  Hopefully they do not look out of place.

 

This will be for sale in my Etsy shop shortly.