Elephant Herd
Watercolor 4 X 6
This summer I've been taking a watercolor class that had me out of my comfort zone for the month of May. We were working on a still life set up which is not one of my favorite things to paint, unless it's something I'm particularly fond of. It was a struggle, I learned some things and my paintings ended up in the trash. I think I still have one unfinished one lurking somewhere.
This month we were supposed to start on something of our own choosing. The instructor probably got tired of the whining about the still life. Since summer time is a good time to tackle a project that has been on the back of my brain for awhile, I decided to do a full sheet elephant painting on a Masa paper covered sheet of 140 pound paper. The Masa paper technique I learned a long time ago in a workshop with Chen-Khee Chee. I love the crinkled paper to work on and thought it would lend itself well to painting an elephant.
The first thing I had to do was find some reference material and do some sketches and small color studies of elephants. This is also a way to procrastinate getting to the larger painting. The painting above is one of my practice paintings that I actually liked. I have started on the full sheet painting. I don't have a scary blank sheet anymore, but I'm taking my time and hope that it will be "blog worthy" in a week or two.
