Monday, June 29, 2009

Rhino - a watercolor work in progress

Rhino
22" x 30" watercolor
140 lb Arches paper

Rhino is coming along - but he also has a long ways to go. Part of the challenge with this particular beast is that he has such interesting and unique skin and plates. To try to achieve something that even approximates his texture is quite a long process. I will be adding the background next, looking to create blooms and splotches to suggest the rock behind him, but nothing that will complete with the texture I plan on adding to his body.

I started this painting with the pouring technique, masking off areas I wanted to remain white. I then poured a second and third layer, lifting the masking fluid for some parts of the second pour, and other areas for the third pour. If you click on the photo, you can see that I have already done a layer of texture by adding salt when I painted certain areas and the watercolors were still wet enough to accept the salt and move. 

Back to painting!

6 comments:

zingtrial said...

Value does all the work and color gets all the glory.

Anonymous said...

I see it! I see it! I SEE the rhino! Your painting IS coming along! Keep up the good work.

Paz

Unknown said...

Thanks for your visit Zingtrial. I trust all is going well with you and your family!

Unknown said...

Oh Paz! You are so much fun!!! Why is it that you don't live closer so that we could hang out and laugh together??? Sometimes things don't seem quite fair.
:-)

Jill Berry said...

Interesting series of techniques. So different than oils. I enjoyed checking out your website. Awesome photography!
Thanks for your kind note on my painting blog.

Unknown said...

Hi Jill,
Thanks for visiting my blog! I am just beginning to experiment in oils, and I have found that the techniques for watercolor ARE very different from the way one works in oils. Hopefully if you return at another time, I will have several oils posted for you to view! :-)