Work in Progress: Winter Fox Part 7

Not that much left to go now.

I add some fine darker details onto the fox's body and tail as well as some highlights but I largely work on the snow.

Using light bluey and pink whites I add these into the foreground and softly blend whilst trying to leave areas of more dishevelled snow and shadows. The more bluey and brighter tones of the foreground snow compliment the reflections in the fox's eyes and body and provide contrast against the darker background.

Part 8 coming Saturday.

Work in Progress: Winter Fox Part 6

It's time for Part 6 of my Winter Fox painting. I suggest checking out the previous stages if you haven't already seen them this week.

Alright.. ready?

Here we go!

Now we're really going to bring in the winter sun and add bright white details to the brush and honey warmth to the body of the fox. But before that it's time to finish the head by adding the last of the fur around the cheek and the last whiskers in the shadow.

Using my finest brush I add littke fur details in the body along with broader sweeps of colour onto the hind leg. I did omit the details of a couple of holly leaves until now on the left-most twig so have filled them in.

I've also started on the foreground. It's just going to be of snow so I've added a mixture of dark blue and purpley tones in the shadowy areas so I can start adding the lighter tones later.

See you Friday for the next step!

Work in Progress: Winter Fox Part 5

More furring today. 

I've done some more fur details on the face but have largely been working on the lighter colours of the body. Oddly enough the lighter colours in the tail will actually probably end up more shadow as the tail will be in bright light. I've brought in more golden tones to the fur towards the middle (again another bright area) and added some small highlights into the dark fur.

I think it's time to start thinking about the foreground.

Work in Progress: Winter Fox Part 4

Here is Part 4 of my winter fox painting. Make sure to have a look at the previous stages of this painting on my blog as you follow me paint.

Now the time for furring and and adding highlights has come!

I've added some darker base tones to the brush making sure to work in the direction of the fur. As well as this I've also added the very darkest lines and areas of fur at the back of the fox. The biggest change has been the highlights on the face though. Adding the white, yellow, and blue highlights to the eyes helps bring them to life. And the brighter touches on the nose and highlights on the whiskers let you know that the fox has its nose in the sun. Here's a close up:

I've also worked on the fur details of the face and ears also the left side of the fox's face (that's on our right) is still relatively untouched. I try to make sure to work on areas that will be overlapped first (such as the jaw before the tail fur) to avoid awkward mark-making and keep things a little more natural.

Part 5 tomorrow.

Work in Progress: Winter Fox Part 3

Welcome to Part 3 of the Winter Fox painting. Make sure to check out Part 1 and 2 to catch up to now.

Now that the fox has been roughed out we can start to work on some of the dark areas and make the fox more opaque.

As well as working on some of the darks of the eyes, ears, and nose I've also worked a little on the fur edges that overlap the background. I've let some of the leaves fall in front and behind the fox but I'm probably going to introduce a new branch to 'tuck' the fox in. I've also added some lighter touches to the fox's brush and some base colours for a few whiskers.

A lot of dark colours have been added towards the back and rear of the fox as these areas will sit in shadow with the front in much brighter light. I've also added the snow onto the leaves behind.

In Part 4 we'll build up the fur and add the highlight colours into the eyes and face so they really 'pop'.

More to come Tuesday.

Work in Progress: Winter Fox Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of my Winter Fox painting! 

I'm working on a title. 

If you haven't seen part 1 make sure to scroll down to check that out or use the links to the side so you can see how the painting has already progressed.

So now that the holly and ivy has been roughed out I work in some of the details into it such as the shadows and veins and not forgetting the reflections as holly leaves are pretty glossy as well as the berries.

After that we finally get to work on the fox. Hurrah! I'm using the paint pretty thin here to position elements of the painting as well as the general flow of the fur. You can also see some blues and greys have been added onto the leaves and berries, this is to be the base for some snow that still remains caught in the bush. I also did a lighter wash on to the ivy leaves to blend the veins in more.

Stay tuned for the next update tomorrow!

Work in Progress - Winter fox painting Part 1

I thought I would share with you guys the current wildlife painting I am working on. It has a bit of a wintry theme going on. I'm pleased with how it is turning out so far and think it would make some nice little Christmassy (sorry I said the word!) prints. I hope to be able to do this in the near future with this painting as well as some other works but I'm not sure whether I'm going to use photos I take myself, invest in some more photography gear (ie lights), or see if I can find someone to take the photos.

As I am going on a little holiday to Iceland I thought that I would schedule stages of the painting to go up on my blog whilst I am away so you can see the painting progress. So from Sunday expect Part 2 and subsequent daily updates every morning!


Okay let's get started:

First, I wanted to create a wintery painting but I wasn't sure what animal to create a painting of. I decided against a robin as they are so overused but still wanted an animal that would fit nicely into a winter environment. One of my first ideas was to create a painting of a pair of bramblings - winter migrants to the UK in our colder months.. but I thought people would prefer a more well known animal. Although I still want to do this painting at some point. I thought about red deer bracing against winter blizzards and stoats in their ermine colours. But I decided upon the fox. There were 3 reasons for this: 

First a fox in it's winter coat is pretty stunning in the winter months and I remember seeing footage of one hunting through metre's thick snow in the TV documentary Yellowstone (you can find the clip on Youtube), secondly from a young age I loved foxes and even set up a little fox club and recruited everyone I could into it; and thirdly because I found a beautiful reference photo on MorgueFile that just worked really well with what I wanted to do.  This was to incorporate other seasonal aspects of nature: holly and ivy.

First job was to sketch out the fox and work on the positioning of some holly and ivy bush which the fox would be resting under. I sketched the image out in a muted blue so this would fit in well with the snowy background I was going to create.

Next I washed the background in a mix of blue and lavender tones to provide a base colour. I used a fan brush to allow for softer blending. This was left to dry so that a more opaque background layer could be created.

This more paint-rich layer was again softly blended. Greyer tones are also present to bring out the brighter areas that will be created on the fox and in the foreground later. Now it's time to add the leaves.

I added in some paler background leaves and branches. You can see the start of some darker leaves which I will spread out as well as berries and a trail of ivy leaves along the edge. 

These will be detailed in Part 2 this Sunday. Keep an eye out for the daily updates coming from then.

Painting in progress

So I wanted to share the progress one of my latest paintings, which there was a sketch of last week. It's still not quite finished but its almost there. The finished painting will probably be uploaded to my deviantart account next week so check it out then. There's another painting that I would really like to share but it has to wait a couple of months but I will do a WIP (Work in Progress) for it and talk about it when I am able as I think it came out pretty well.


Work in Progress: In a Melting World

So here's the sketch that I showed last week:

So this was creating a basic composition for my painting and the elements I wanted in it. The parallel lines across the bears face are to help keep facial features in proportion.

Here I've finished most of my background. First I did a block coat of blue as a base layer and let it try before another coat of blue and some shading to create some depth under the bear.

Working on reflections can be particularly challenging at this stage. I concentrated on the ice and the reflections of it and the bear. The base shading of the bear is done both with a warm blue for the main body of the bear and a cool blue of the water's reflection.

At this point I had done most of the shadows and highlights in the body of the bear and had just started putting down the base tones of the head.

Here I've worked again adding the cool and warm blues into the face and the darks of the eyes and nose. I've also added bubbles into the water which adds a sense of movement. This is where I am up to today so hopefully I only need to do finishing touches and sign it.

Furthermore, I think this is the only painting I've actually titled long before painting it as a concept, rather than the usual having no idea what to title paintings. I hope it makes people think a little about the other critters on this planet and how they are doing instead of just the bubble of their immediate surroundings.

Hope you like what I have at this stage!