I have a nice loose splodgy wash for you to finish off the weekend! I’ve been looking for reference material to paint something for a friend’s birthday who loves Jacaranda trees and I found a great picture of a Lorikeet snacking on the blossoms – it’s so colourful it sings!
I started off by splashing water and some Cobalt Blue around and then dropped in a mixture of Quinacridone Magenta and Indanthrene Blue to make that gorgeous lilac colour for the blossom. In the middle I dabbed a paper towel to lift the colour out again and then painted Sap Green and Viridian while it was still wet, with some Indian yellow and Vermillion for his breast… it was too wet really because it spread a bit, but luckily I managed to pull most of it back into line with a dry brush. Last of all was some Cerulean Blue for his head, darkened in places with more Indanthrene.
Stage two will be to try and identify some blossom shapes to emerge from the background wash, which is where it’s going to get tricky – my skills at negative painting often let me down because I find it hard to imagine the shapes when they’re not there. Most of all I want to try and maintain the freshness that I have so far, so I’ll be concentrating on not pushing the paint around too much.