Bad Faerie No.1 makes a Grand Entrance!

This week I've been feeling really unproductive so two nights ago, I woke up at 3am to work on this.

 

I've had this like forever... drawn four years ago for an ex-colleague of mine. I had redrawn this and left it hanging...colourless. I was compiling my portfolio recently and I got fed up with the number of colourless sketches I have. 

So inspired by Daniel Merriam as introduced by Helen Waters (a lovely artist and co-worker that I knew in LA), I decided to colour this in the dry brush watercolour technique that Daniel has. I was also inspired by *ti-rri, Finnish young artist who uses beautiful "wet" watercolour techniques and masking fluid. I'm really amateurish compared to her when it comes to watercolours.

To use watercolour pencils so long after my "comeback" into art, the sight of the watercolour palette had sent a tremble of fear through me. They are tricky to use, hard to change once on paper as they dry quickly. I never trained myself much in them, even though I scored an A1 for Art at GCE 'O' Levels. Then I scolded myself for being silly. After all I've used watercolours before, duh. And they are just a bunch of lifeless watercolours. I'm the one with Life and stronger than them.... or so I think.

So I sacrificed my sleep and worked until Viking Man woke up at 6am.

And continued working.

The end result is this.

Not too bad for a comeback, eh?

It took a long time, as the colours were laid on in layers - first beige, then gray, then red, blue, brown, orange, green and further refinement.

  

It didn't turn out the way I expected too, as always.

I was expecting something more green and blue and I ended up with a rainbow extravaganza.

But still I like it, especially the mushroom. The trees are not too bad as an afterthought too. They were inspired by real coral trees, after I Googled that name as I thought it's a nice mixture of sea and earth.

The shading on the wings amazes me because sometimes I don't know I'm capable of such gentle shading of colour. I wonder if Vincent Van Gogh was ever amazed by his own paintings too? (Disclaimer: hey I'm not saying I'm anywhere close to his level of expertise, I'm still lacking much practice especially in oils!)

Do you spot the two names I've incorporated in this drawing? One of them is my ex-colleague's name (she's going to be excited when I tag her on Facebook) and the other is my own. Hehe. I'll leave you guessing where they are.

My favourite parts are the red bubbles and the flying fishies. Leaves you guessing if they are underwater or not. The hair looks as if it's underwater too. My ex-colleague had wanted a Star necklace on her feet and she's drunk on faerie beer while smoking (that's my ex-colleague for ya....nah :)

Ahhh....I love my painting. If adding colour is such fun, I might continue adding more colours to my lifeless B n' W sketches.

Happy! :)

x pixy