Art tuition, Ducks from the white Birds of the Water Collection.

Another great array of artistic talent in the white Birds of the Water Zoom course.

A wonderful array of talent from this zoom class.

“Ducks” a water colour and mixed media image is based on a group of ducks from the “White Birds of the Water” collection.

The composition of this mixed media artwork is set up to focus on the community nature of ducks, we have two adult ducks paddling towards us while the third duck is feeding showing only its tail feathers.

The inspiration came from a local wildlife pool where we live. It is of constant pleasure to us when we visit this place throughout the whole year.

I really like to get my students to focus on the initial drawing, I feel that the importance of this is you have a structured foundation to underpin your watercolour painting. This will support any creative experimental work that you add afterwards.

The second step is application of the Quink ink with a Parker Vector pen. A joyous activity where you can free up with loose sketchy marks, with the security of the pencil out lines to guide you.

Adding white and coloured wax as mixed media works so well with watercolour as it resists the wet and the colours break through with dramatic effect.

The choice of colours for this mixed media and watercolour painting is inspired by a limited pallet including a variety of blues, white and grey wax for the water. These are added in bold strokes to emulate the movement within the water. The white and orange wax colours on the ducks provide a strong contrast to the watery environment.

We are now at the stage of mixing our water colour ready to use in a large enough amount to avoid running out of paint. This is very important.

Now the exciting stage is where we lay on a clear wash of water, see the ink react and then add the wash of ultramarine blue. This watercolour wash holds all the individual areas of interest together and presents the painting as a whole image. As the watercolour paint dries the wax colours emerge from the background adding another dimension to your finished painting.

Beautiful results in the painting class.

Thought you’d like to see Jonathan’s latest work of art - he loves following the instructions on your work sheets and was very pleased to see his gannet on your blog page

Thanks for Thursday’s lesson I enjoyed the project and also watching the demos is very instructive

Many thanks

Sheila

a young child's version of our duck pond well done.