Robin Wreath by Rebecca Yoxall

Greetings to you all.

How are we all on this fine Friday? 

I'm sharing a painting today of one of my favourite birds, the robin, set in simple wreath. I've used Colourcraft Acrylic Inks and metallic acrylic inks to produce the beautiful luminous colours and shimmer. These acrylic inks are fabulous to work with, very easy to blend with water, really versatile and perfect for pen and wash style. I hope you like him. keep reading and I'll show you how I brought him to life.

 I used a high quality watercolour paper and drew my robin with an HB pencil and a suggestion of the shape of the wreath. 

Using a full set of 12 inks I chose Crimson, scarlet, yellow, dark brown, ultramarine, emerald green and black to begin.

Using both the crimson and scarlet acrylic inks I brushed small amounts onto the breast of the bird with a touch of yellow too. I applied the colour in layers to build a lovely rich tone. 

Then the dark brown ink gave me the perfect shade for the robins head and wings. 

The pale area of the bird was painted in with a tiny tiny amount of ultramarine and dark brown mixed together with lots of water. And some more dark brown for the birds legs.

I then began to ink in the holly leaves with emerald green as an outline then filled in the middles with drops of both emerald green and ultramarine. This gives a nice subtle variegation to each leaf. I also left some white paper showing through the middle of the leaf to hint at a bit more detail.

My favourite, simple way of painting berries is to use a cotton bud. (choose recyclable not plastic)

Simply dip into the crimson ink and stamp away, putting little groups of 3 or 4 berries together

I decided to paint in some fir tree sprigs as well with the emerald green. I did this with a fine brush and flicked the paint from the middle of the sprig outwards so that the line painted thick from the middle to thin at the outside.

From here I went into 'decoration mode' and embellished the design with trailing twigs using the dark brown ink and a fine brush. I concentrated on both thicker lines and thinner curled sprigs to create a tangle of branches around the leaves and berries

I also have a set of the metallic acrylic ink colours which are devine to use. I nestled some extra foliage/leaf shapes using the gold ink and stamping the brush on the paper the capture a nice shape from a central stem.

The aquamarine metallic ink perfectly complements the the greens of the holly when over painted through the middles of the leaves and the gold splashed onto the robins red breast complements the gold leaves.

The final touch came with the black ink when I painted in the beak and eye of the bird as well as some shadows on the underside of the berries.

Thanks for stopping by. Wishing you a wonderful festive season and I will see you with more projects in 2019!

Bec