I have a notorious section in my studio named the ‘crap pile’, which is where not worthy paintings go straight to the local recycling facilities. Occasionally my mum will visit and save pieces from such a fate. This was one of them.
When you’re so close and spend so much time drawing, transferring, redrawing, inking and then watercolouring you can get so frustrated with the outcome - you just can’t look at it anymore and it has a stay in the famous pile, maybe indefinitely …
This toad made it out of there, I cleaned him up, unbuckled him as the paper was extremely buckled from all the water I threw at him, (I’ll share this technique in future posts) and he now sits flat and beautiful in my shop ready for his new home!
He was made from watercolour and ink with some white pigment, he’s so old I didn’t even get to sprinkle some Brusho on him, a rarity these days!
