Hummer

   Pictorial Tut

 Recently I joined a swap on AFA, (ATC's For All) in which we used our hand print as a template for our works of art. Here are the four that I did for the swap...

Most of the players seem to favor the Humming bird that I did, so I did it as  postcards as well. A lot of times I will remake my art, by using tracing paper. In my opinion, the sketching is the hardest thing to do....by tracing your work, you've taken away the most time consuming part. It also leaves you with the most enjoyable part...color!

So, here's how I layer my work....kind of long and tedious to explain using pic's, but if your willing to read it...then I'm willing to show it! :) 

First step is to trace both sides of your tracing paper with your image. In my case it's of my own work...but maybe you have a photograph or something from a magazine to trace....Transfer your image to your watercolor paper. With the image traced to both sides, you have a make shift transfer paper. 

Next, is the coloring....I'm using mostly Inktense water color pencils, along side cheap pan water colors. In the pic, you can see that I am starting at the head with the water color pencils. I colored most of it with an orange color. Once I'm finished with that, I chose a darker color in the red family, for the areas of the head that protrude on the birds head. For example, the cheeks or just around the eye...maybe a bit at the edges of the head, just to define the area. ....I almost never use one color for an area. I use two or more....

In the last two pictures above, I am adding more depth to the white part of the bird. Flat white is boring. I use whatever color is left in my brush, to make quick impressions of feather on his chest. Adding water to the paper helps to put some shade in as well. I take a Payne's Grey color and lightly swirl it in with the water pooled on the paper. 

Here comes the blue swirly magic! First I line the swirls with one choice of blue that I picked.  Color in the spaces, sparingly. Darker in some of the curvy spots...places that you want to jump out. Then, with another choice of blue or blue/green, fill the areas in more. As you can see, it doesn't need to be a neat job! Next, with a brush loaded with water, I go over the swirls. Go past the lines! Have some of it bleed away from the swirls. Drawing lines still there? Who cares! It adds texture! ....okay..or scrub some of them smooth with your brush. ;)

I've got the swirls in, now it's just a matter of filling in the blanks. Brush loaded again with water. I wet all of the white spaces. This time my color of choice is yellow. I'm using the cheap pan stuff again. Same with the pink. I'm using pink only near the bottom and at the edges....Again, let it flow, don't be neat...maybe just gentle....If the color mix a little no big deal. 

Once it dried, I took my Uni-ball Signo white pen to line all of the blue swirls...not even neatly! Did the same with a Silver Gelly Roll Stardust pen. To add to the magical look....I did some stipples with the same silver pen. ...In the last pic, I'm using a Pentel Color Brush pen. It makes broad intense strokes. Might seem scary to slash through your work with it, but the out come defines the bird handsomely. I also touched up the yellow with an Inktense water color pencil. I worked from the middle out.....leaving the farthest edges with it's original yellow.

Next are my usual last touches.....
A little bit of Distress Ink used around the edges. "Black Soot" for this work. I also like to use a date stamper right on top of the work! Slam it down like a crazy person! Ha! ....I've also been known to use stencils. I add numbers a lot of the time. Sometimes the number has meaning and sometimes it doesn't. It's just a filler for blank spots that didn't have interest. Another thing I do for those boring spots, is to add poetry excerpts. ....This one has an excerpt from Robert Frost. 

Wa la! Done! The finished piece...