Friday 31 August 2018

Gerty the Giraffe by Rebecca Yoxall

Hello
Thanks for joining us on the Colourcraft blog. It's been a busy few weeks for me since my last post. There's been lots of painting and drawing and I've had my tin of Brusho out as much as possible, as well as preparing for my Solo exhibition 'For the love of colour'. Lots of my Brusho artworks are part of the collection of work. Well of course how could they not be when 'bright colours' are the main focus of my show :-)
I also had a fantastic visit to Chester Zoo to draw some of the animals so what better subject to write a tutorial about than a Giraffe!


Here's some of my sketches from my Zoo visit



I drew out this one below larger scale on a good quality sheet of hot pressed watercolour paper.


I used lots of the natural/neutral shades of Brusho including Light Brown, Dark Brown, Burt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Terracotta and Sandstone. 


Using the Brusho like watercolour I washed in lots of delicate pale (highly diluted with water) shades.


Then gradually built up the colours in layers to capture more detail around the mouth, ear and Ossicones (horns). I allowed each layer to dry to get maximum depth of shading.


Once all the grounding layers were dry I then added the Giraffes spots using pale mixtures first and then dropping darker washes in whilst wet so that the spot colours graded rather than looking flat.


I tried to get as much variety in the spot colours as possible without them looking too over the top. And by making some of the spots on the top of the head light and some dark at the back of the head  it gives an impression of light and shade.


I finished the painting with a turquoise wash. I mixed up the colours in a palette to keep them pale and fluid and sprinkled some of the Brusho on sparingly whilst the background was still wet.




My solo exhibition is running until 6th September at Abda Ltd, Crown street, Northwich, Cheshire.
https://www.facebook.com/events/217096375675454/



Here are some of my sketchbook pages from my Zoo visit.

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