Sunday, November 9, 2014

the Power of Playfulness

 
 
A Chipmunk has the power of playfulness.  This piece is a companion, in a sense, to the one of the snowy owl because the both depict an animal and honor its spiritual power. If you've ever seen a chipmunk, you know that they are playful indeed.  Of course I'm speaking of their behavior, but even their appearance is playful with those jaunty racing stripes!
 
After the first session, I did a bit more with the watercolor, deepening the colors in parts of the chipmunk, lily, oak leaf, pansy, and background - well, the whole thing really.  Then I got out my uniball pens and added the white lettering, the fur texture, and some outlining.  I'm so glad I found those pens (on http://www.jetpens.com) and doubly glad that I found them in various tip sizes, including pretty darn small, and shades of black such as black-green, black-brown, and black-red.  They're very nice pens indeed, with metal tips rather than the synthetic ones like are on Sakura micron pens.

I used a bit of colored pencil, but not much as I found watercolor easier and less likely to damage the paper.  My final step was my metallic Lumiere acrylics. I used copper on the lily stamens, sparkle on the chipmunk's white fur, and indigo, dark green, and turquoise around the edges. These metallics were a nice compliment to the iridescent Daniel Smith watercolors that I used in the background.

My next piece in this technique will probably be a kingfisher.

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