My Alcohol Ink Hummer

Today's painting, My Little Hummer was done with alcohol inks on Yupo paper, a new fav of mine.  

I finally got back to my animals art class that I am taking through Karen Walker.  

I basically used 2 colors, we'll kinda.  Purple and green: Twilight Purple and about 3 or 4 different greens and a touch of butterscotch.  Ok, so I guess that's three.

I first drew my hummingbird out on a piece of computer paper, which is my preferred paper for drawing.  I then scribbled on the back of the drawing so I could trace it onto the Yupo paper.  

  This is where the fun begins, I started pouring on the inks starting with the purple.  I really used a lot of ink and I let it lay flat most of the time, taking a brush to fill in the white spots.  I also used a little blending solution In the upper left quadrant, and held the paper up for a very short time.  Most of it was done wet on wet, except for the flowers in the upper right, and some extra green on the bird's back.  Using my paintbrush to lift, blend and add color, a cotton ball with a little blending solution and cotton swabs to lighten areas and add flowers and a bit of Spectrum Noir markers under his chin.  

With a little blending solution on my tiny brush, I traced over my drawing to lift the color and bring out the humming bird.  From there I blended the lines, lifted color, added color and this is what I came up with. 

Reference photo by Michael D. Utin from paintmyphoto.ning.com. 

Hope you enjoyed reading about the process.  Have a great day!  To see my paintings that are for sale, visit my etsy shop 

~Brenda 

Sleeping Buddies II Commission

I received a request from a customer on Etsy from Germany.  She saw my little Sleeping Buddies aceo on google, which was already sold, and wondered if I coulde paint her a bigger one but with a brown bear, light brown mouse and green background.  I was delighted to and quickly replied to her request.

She decided on a 5x7 and so I quickly sketched him out on a piece of paper and then quickly colored him in a bit with colored pencils to get a feel for it. 

Because of the texture on the canvas, I usually like to draw my painting on a piece of paper and then trace it onto the canvas by scribbling on the back of the paper with pencil and then tracing it.  I've tried tracing paper but that leaves smudges all over the place. 

I started by putting in some of the shadows on the bear, and then working from there.

I then painted the little mouse, making sure you could clearly see the mouse among all that brown.

Got a little carried away with the background before I remembered to take a picture.  This little guy begged for purple flowers with all that green.

I find that I get better results if I walk away from the painting every now and then to get a fresh look when I come back.  I pretty much finished him after a couple of hours.

The next day I did a little tweeking and painted the sides.

Here he is on my desk drying next to another painting I am working on.  Actually when I finished painting the sides of Sleeping Buddies II, I decided to paint the sides on the cat painting, still haven't named it, so it can dry and I can finish with the last bit of details.

Here's Sleeping Buddies II.  The picture is bad because the paint is still wet and I took it in my studio instead of outside, which is what I'll do once it dries before I ship it off to Germany. 
Here's a link to the original Sleeping Buddies in my shop .

I hope you enjoyed going through the process with me, it was a lot of fun for me to share. 
Have a wonderful day!

Hugs,
Brenda

Butterfly aceo

Oil on watercolor paper.

Here is another from my butterfly series I seem to be doing. I love the flash of red and bit of yellow on his wings.

Rooster aceo

I love the colors of this guy. This is oil on watercolor paper, aceo size. ACEO stands for Art Cards Editions and Originals. They are 3.5x2.5 inches, and they make affordable, addorable mini works of art. Can be framed, displayed on a mini easle or added to your collection.

You can find Rooster aceo at http://www.brendathour.com/