Four Different Approaches to the Same Subject
I have been doodling a lot trying different media and stylistic approaches. One day I thought of a story involving a young aristocrat lady and a flamingo in an English country setting; I was not sure of the best style for this subject so I experimented a little.
Here are the results:
1) I was trying a new liquid watercolour bought from a local art supply store, this one was applied with pen and brush on mixed media paper (which for me worked wonders; very pleasant combination) there are enough texture to keep the image interesting yet not too much to be distracting and messy.
2) Then I decided to try some colour with a slightly different composition; in the previous scene the lady and the bird have already become friends, in this scene they have not yet met. This was on Canson's mixed media sketchbook. The paper is nice enough to have some extent of wet media. I'm very familiar with using natural colour palettes, here I tried something new. I was not sure if I loved this palette, but it's definitely something I could use on other subjects.
3) Now it's time to take it to a fully finished illustration (although my purpose at the time was rather to experiment than to really finish a portfolio piece); I found an old piece of watercolour paper cut from a whole sheet, had no idea which brand it was, and decided to use it up.
As mentioned, I've always used more natural/normal palettes in my past works and it was becoming a bit boring and too comfortable, so I wanted to try something different. I had vaguely decided that my trees would be blue, and the flamingo would remain its natural pink; then I first painted the foliage at the foreground: I used a tubed watercolour 'neutral tint' which has a nice purplish tone, adding some sepia and french ultramarine for variation. Then I slowly worked out the whole image. I let it sit for a day before colouring the lady's dress, and another day before I added the texture on the tree canopies with watercolour pencil, since they looked a bit under finished.
4) After I finished the previous piece I was unsure of my feelings of it, so I went on to try another colour palette. This time I used a pad sheet of watercolour paper (I believe it was a Canson XL), which has a different texture and character to whole sheet watercolour papers (the pad papers usually show more watermarks and somehow hold less layers, I found; this is not true to Arches, though).
I was happy with the grey leaf vs. blue flower, so I only made small changes to the foreground foliage; and since the previous palette was more of a twilight/night scene, I wanted this one to have a morning setting, plus I wanted to see what effects it would have if the trees are a lighter blue.
The rings on the trees were added later again because I felt they were a bit empty; to imply the effect of sunlight I added the "yolks": I'm still not sure if it was the right decision, but it's definitely an interesting effect and might be useful somewhere else. That's the charm of experimenting: you never know what might come out of it.
