Whilst busy with commission work and big projects I had time to squeeze in a brightly coloured flowing fighting fish along with a clownfish commission I’ve been working on.
These fish were painted mainly in Brusho and inks to really capture the vibrancy that fish tend to radiate!
I used a ‘snow’ textured watercolour paper for the clownfish and I got a softer cloudier effect when it came to painting.
The texture of this paper also allowed the colours to pool and merge in interesting ways.
I painted this large white tiger head in watercolours, Indian ink and Brusho, in the process of finding the right tiger face to paint I found out that white tigers are so inbred that they all have crossed eyes — even if their eyes look normal!
I also painted some elephant shrews, the vibrant orange of their fur suckered me in so I have painted them boldly in brusho pigment and Indian ink.
An established species in London and on the south-east of Britain, these beautiful parakeets are rumoured to have been escapees from The African Queen film set. I’ve painted this parakeet using mostly Brusho to get that vibrancy contrasting with the softer watercolour pigments. This parakeet painting is available in my shop.
The paper I used to paint this white tailed deer had a little suprise pressed into it — a bug!
I didn’t want to waste the paper so this work is extra unique with its own little insect fossil on the far left side of the paper.
This piece was painted primarily with brusho pigment, I find brusho gives an intense colour which doesn’t fade as much as watercolour.
I used masking fluid to cover areas of the deers face to leave little white spots, and I used white pen for the odd whisker and hair.
I used a lot of orange watercolour (I couldn’t help myself) on an otherwise predominantly brown but gorgeous deer, white tailed deer are found throughout North and South America.
With their dark eye brows and vocal cackling these guys are my favourite coastal bird. I call them the penguins of the skies as they fly exactly the way a penguin swims underwater — stiff wing movement, which is great fun to watch!
I’ve used a fair bit of masking fluid to preserve the white of the paper to form the distinct white feathers.
I’ve used brusho pigment ink and watercolour to produce these paintings with white pigment.
Unfortunately sometimes I order watercolour paper and it comes through the post a bit bent up, so my answer to this is to splice up the creased up paper into strips where only small critters like these fish can fit — a happy ending!
These fighting fish were created using Indian ink, brusho pigment, white pen and watercolour and available to purchase in my shop.
