Reference

I took a decent photo of a young Red deer stag a long time ago, and based the illustration on this.  The advantage of using your own photos is that you don’t infringe anyone’s copyright.

My own photo of a young male Red deer buck

However, there are various aspects that make this photo far from perfect.  The “mane” at the throat is not pronounced.  The colour is very washed out.  I can’t see the hooves in detail.  So I got some other reference from the internet that solved these problems.

Painting: Under layer

Once I’d drawn up the Stag (on Stonehenge aqua hotpress watercolour paper) I mixed Sepia with Winsor violet and Light red (all Winsor & Newton watercolour paints) and plotted in the areas of shadow, using brush marks to echo the growth pattern of the fur.  These days I tend to use a Princeton Velvetouch brush (size 2), which is a synthetic.  (For much more on my quest for a good synthetic paintbrush, check out my blog series.)

Initial mid tones added

My nest step was very different to what I usually do.  I mixed up three watery colours, and used these to plot in the tonal differences of the deer.  I normally reserve this wash for the every end of an illustration, but was curious to see what happened if I switched the timing of this wash.

The Colours were a diluted dark brown (as in the mix above), a dilute reddish brown (Sepia plus plenty of Light red), and a brown-orange (Light red with a touch of Cadmium orange.)

Undercoat wash added

Adding Detail

Usually, I add detail to the body first and leave the head until the end.  But in the spirit of experimentation, I completed the head first.  I made the eye too large, so had to come in with some white gouache.  I also forgot that the pupils of deer’s eyes are lateral slits rather than round, so this had to be altered later on.  The face is a darker brown than the body, so the mix was Sepia plus Winsor violet plus Winsor green (yellow hue).

Adding detail to the neck and face of the deer

The next step takes a long time and requires plenty of patience (and something good to listen to on the radio!).  Using the same three colour mixes, in a less diluted form, I build up the body colour of the stag using lots and lots of tiny brush strokes.  These strokes follow the line of fur growth and give texture as well as colour.

I started with the Reddish brown mix, more or less across the entire animal.  Then I added dark browns to the legs, more to the neck, to the belly and rear end.  The third layer was the Brown-orange, covering up the highlights but adding a lighter brown tone to show where the light hits the animal.

Finally, I mixed a very dark brown by altering the ratios of Sepia, Winsor violet, and Winsor green.  This was used to pick out and add real depth to the shadows on the neck and legs.  Adding the hooves and detail to the antlers were the last steps.

Completed illustration with paint-box and brushes

Conclusion

Switching the timing of when the loose colour wash was added was useful.  it helped provide information on tone which always helps when you add the detailing.  I’m quite happy with the finished illustration, although the use of white gouache on the face and rump is a bit of a shame.  However, it needed to be done because I’d not got the tonal balance correct.  It could have looked worse.

Completed Red deer

The main aim was to improve on the (rather poor) last Red deer I’d illustrated.  And I’m glad to say this has been achieved.

Previous illustration of Red deer

The post Red Deer stag step by step appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

When I illustrate an animal, I like to learn about it as well as about the way it looks.  I always spend a little time online getting to know my subject before I begin, and when I make my films, this allows me to talk about what I’m illustrating as well as how I’m illustrating it.

Researching your subject

Before putting pencil top page, you need to have some knowledge of the species you’re illustrating.  I tend to take a look at the RSPB and Woodland trust page when it comes to birds, along with reference books such as Birds of Britain and Europe by Peterson & Mountford.  I check out illustrations, and photos on iNaturalist.  I’m also lucky enough to have been given permission from Pete Walkden, incredible wildlife photographer, to work with his photos.

Bullfinch illustration with reference materials

In some cases, I’m lucky enough to have a specimen of the bird available to draw (as with this Bullfinch).  This always makes colour-matching a doddle.  This time no-one had bought me a flycatcher, killed by a cat or found on the road verge, for the freezer.  Alas.

Drawing up the Flycatcher

Referring to the reference, and bearing in mind that I need to make the identifying features obvious, I combine my visual and written reference and draw up the bird in pencil, direct onto hot press watercolour paper.

Pencil rough of the Spotted Flycatcher

Equipment

It’s worth name-checking the equipment I use.  Pencils are Pentel P205 mechanical pencils. Watercolour paper is Fluid 100 by Global arts (for more on hot press paper choice please look at my series of blogs and films).

My favourite pencil – the Pentel P205

My paints tend to be Winsor and Newton watercolours, although other brands are good too.  In this step by step, the colours we’ll use are Purple, Naples yellow, Burnt umber, Cobalt blue, Cadmium yellow, Cadmium orange, Alizarin crimson, and a dark blue such as Phthalo or Winsor blue.

My Winsor and Newton paintbox (which I wash clean before each new species)

Brushes are invariably Winsor and Newton Series & sable, size 1.  I’m still on the lookout for good synthetic alternatives; feel free to check out my blog and films to see how far I’ve got with my quest!)  Factis Tri-24 erasers are my go-to, and they remove pencil line from painted surfaces without damaging the paper too much.

Painting the Spotted Flycatcher: Wing outlines

The first step is outlining the edges of the wing feathers.  Some of the flight feathers have pale margins, so this needs to be respected.  Leave the white of the page for pale areas, in watercolour it’s always easy to make an area darker but very hard to make it lighter.  Use the white page for highlights and pale colours.

Outlining feathers and barbs

The wing colour is a brownish grey.  This is a mix of Purple, Naples yellow, and Burnt umber.  I simply outline the edge of each wing, then add the barbs of the feather in the same colour, putting thin lines parallel to one another.  I keep the barbs on one side of the rachis closer together (and therefore darker) than on the opposite side.  Swiftly painted, pale drop shadows help show the difference between feathers.

Further down, the lower flight feathers and the tail have no pale margins and are a darker colour.  Alter the ratio of the colours in your mix to reflect this.  Take your paint marks up to the edge of each feather, but leave a hairline of white paper so you can see where one feather ends and the next beings.

Lower flight feathers

As these are closely aligned, in some cases you may simply want to show one feather with a thick, dark line instead of with the network of feather barbs.  This works well, but remember to leave space between feathers.

Plotting in the Body colour and texture

It’s important to keep the colour consistent across the bird, so there are no stark colour changes (unless the bird has these).  This means the back is plotted in using the exact same colour as the wings.  Brush strokes vary a little, fanning out to show feathers, and make it clear the texture on this part of the Flycatcher differs from the smoother flight feathers.

Laying down colour and texture on the back

Painting the Flycatcher head

When you’ve worked up the body, you reach the head.  It’s important to concentrate here as too many dark lines, or lines which are too thick can really compromise an illustration.  Follow the edges of patterns you’ll have included in pencil when you drew up the bird.  Check your reference.  Even though you’re “colouring-in”, you need to be drawing with the brush the whole time, and transferring your observations to the page.

Head of the flycatcher

For areas which are noticeably darker (around the eye, at the nape) put your brush marks closer together, or layer them.  Always follow the line of growth, in this case the way the feathers lie on the head of the bird.

Tail feathers

As discussed above, the tail feathers are a little darker than the wings and have no distinct margin.  We continue with the same colours in the mix though, and the darker tones build up more  when we add washes on top of this initial layer.

You can see how the brush marks are carried right to the tail feather edges as there are no pale margins.

Tail feathers plotted in

Painting the flanks, rump, and throat

Finally, we get to use new colours!  This mix is going on the belly of the bird, under the wings, and up the throat.  An initial glance might suggest these areas are white.  However, there is some cream in there, and a stark white against the browns and greys would be much too fierce of a contrast.

Mix up Naples yellow with plenty of water (to dilute it and make a paler tint of the colour).  Add the tiniest smidgen of Cadmium orange.

With a very delicate touch, paint the colour onto the bird. You may not be able to see the brush strokes clearly – this is a good sign and suggests you’re keeping the paint nice and pale.

Laying down the cream colour

Observe your reference again.  Where are the darkest areas on the pale parts of the Flycatcher’s body?  More strokes and colour in these regions helps give shape to the bird, and depth to the colour.  Be sure not to swallow up your white areas, remember, the page is your white colour.

In amongst doing this, I also painted in the gravestone.  Lots of blues, greens, and browns.  And a lot of waiting for colours to dry.  I won’t bore you with the details, in all likelihood the last place you’d be illustrating your Flycatcher would be on a lichen-encrusted gravestone!

The bird with cream flanks, rump, and throat.

As before, we don’t want any jarring colour transitions, so carry the cream on up into the head area, and across the back.  Use tiny light brush strokes.  Focus more of these in the darker areas, like the circle round the eye and the back of the neck.

Lots of tiny cream brush strokes in amongst the darker browns of the head

First top wash on the feathers

Now we begin to work on adding depth and colour.  Mix up a watery colour made from Cobalt blue, Burnt umber, and Naples yellow.  Lay this on the feathers, but only on one side, on the darker side, where you placed your parallel feather barb lines closer together.

Allow the paint to dry completely.  (If you get bored waiting for paint to dry, you might want to try using a fan heater or a hair dryer. It can speed things up!)

Flycatcher with wash drying on one half on wing feathers

Add the same mix to the other side of the feathers, making sure to put a second layer on top of the (dry) areas you’ve just worked on.  This layering means one side of the flight feathers looks marginally darker than the other which gives the bird texture and depth.

Use that same watery colour mix, and paint it over the back and body of the bird.  In fact, put it everywhere except for the pale belly, rump, flanks, and head markings.  Suddenly the bird is starting to look more lifelike.

Flycatcher with second colour wash on body and wings

Tackling the edges of the feathers

Remember those pale feather margins?  Well, these are now coming back to haunt us.  I put several layers of different colour on these areas, knocking them back but keeping them paler than the rest of the wings.  Yellow ochre in an extremely pale concentric circle (also applied to the rachis), a very very dilute version of the top wash, and a separate extremely dilute wash of Naples yellow were all involved.  In all cases, washes were allowed to dry fully between stages.

Detail of the feather edges

I know suggesting that you keep working on these until they feel right is unhelpful, it’s the best I can do.  I returned to them so many times I forgot what I did at what point!  Just remember they have to blend in with the main body of each feather, and also be distinctly paler.  Don’t try to add a white or pale top colour, this would just muddy the bird.

Adding colour to the body of the bird

Apply a second wash of the exact same colour mix, and let it dry.  The colour is now building up, but is transparent enough to prevent the details from disappearing.

Spotted flycatcher after the second all-over top wash is applied

Adding definition and shade

Once dry, you can work into the feathers a little more.  Judicious use of a mix of Burnt umber and Cobalt blue, used carefully, can crisp up edges between feathers.  Mix a colour for shadows, I like to use Cobalt blue and Purple.  Using this quite watery (dilute), I drop in a shadow below each feather,  and another onto the flank.  This always makes me feel very nervous, but usually works out ok.

Adding shadows

At this point we’re really nearly finished with the main part of our Spotted flycatcher.  There are details to complete – so far the bird has no eye, beak, or insect to eat!  But the bulk of the work is done.

Painting the details: Beak

The first detail I focus on is that beak.  It’s black, but I avoid using black paint.  I prefer to mix purple and burnt umber.  Not only does this make for a more interesting colour, it also echoes the browns in the flycatcher’s plumage. We’re forever trying to unite colours across the subject so the eye doesn’t feel jarred, or stuck, in one area of the illustration.

Detail of the Flycatcher beak

Keep the paint darker at the tip, and leave a margin at the edge of the beak.  Remember the highlight along the length of the beak.  The open mouth is a mix of purple, brown, and Alizarin crimson.  Keep this light, reds attract the eye, so we have to balance it across the painting by adding touches in the legs, the bird’s eye, tiny areas in the flight feathers.

The insect is painted in Yellow Ochre, Burnt umber, and Purple.  I was thinking of a fat beetle, wing cases already removed by this feisty arial hunter.  As an aside, di you know that flycatchers not only capture their prey in flight, but will deal with wasp and bee stings by rubbing the insect against a stone or branch to disarm it.  How cool?

Painting the Details: Eye

The eye is, for me, the scariest part of any illustration.  Some illustrators do them first so they don’t risk messing them up and having to start over.  I don’t like the vindictive stare I get from my subjects as I paint them into being, so only add their “soul” and accusing eyes at the very end.

For this one, I used Cadmium yellow, browns, and a mix of Alizarin crimson and purple in the dark areas.  The pupil is painted in black, overlaid on the iris.  It’s vital to leave the white page as a highlight, and to try and have bright areas within the iris, so the eye seems to glow.

Working into the iris of the eye

Getting this balance right is always difficult, as is painting near perfect circles in the centre of the eye, on such a tiny scale.  If the worst comes to the worst, you can add to the highlight on the pupil with a dab of white gouache, but it’s best to try and avoid this as it slightly dulls the highlight.

Finished eye

Finishing up: Last shadows

The very last step is to go around sharpening up those shadows one more time.  Use a careful touch and a really dark mix of Burnt umber and purple, or Purple and Cobalt blue.  For me, this last step is when the bird springs to life.  It’s high risk though, as if you overdo the shadows you can lose detail, so please be careful.

Completed illustration showing the colour mixes used

In the photo above, you can see the dark colour I used for the final shadows in the paintbox, along with the greys for the feathers, and a dark maroon which we used for the open mouth, areas of the legs, and to add vibrancy to the eye.

Conclusion

So there you have it.  Lots of tiny brush strokes followed by lots of layers of top washes, and completed with shadows to add crispness.

The original watercolour worked on here is available for sale for £75, email lizzie on info@lizzieharper.co.uk for more.

To see this all happening in more detail, and at a more leisurely pace, please feel free to watch the film below:

Any bird can be illustrated using this approach.  For more of my step-by-step bird illustrations please see my blogs on illustrating a Robin, a Pied Wagtail, a Swallow, a Goshawk, and a Puffin (amongst others).

Completed Spotted Flycatcher Muscicapa striata

The post Spotted Flycatcher step by step appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Completed Robin

Step by step: Getting reference

To get your drawing done, look for royalty free photos online, take a camera into a nearby garden or park, or (if like me you happen to have a friendly wildlife photographer on hand) ask permission to borrow their photos for reference.

I use mechanical Pentel P205 pencils with an H or HB 0.5mm lead.  I draw directly onto my watercolour paper, in this case hotpress Fluid 100 by Global Arts.

One of the reasons why I use Fluid 100 is because it’s quite good at allowing you to erase your pencil lines after you’ve painted on top of them.  This works especially well if you have a really light touch when drawing up your robin.

Unfortunately, I never took a photo of the pencil drawing of this animal, so we’ll have to imagine it.  Apologies!

Step by step: Chest feathers

I start with the chest feathers because this is the palest part of the bird.  We need to make sure it stays pale, but still shows texture.  I use lots of tiny brush marks to show the texture of feathers, focussing on areas of shadow.  In this case they are below the wing, and at the bottom of the robin’s body.

Winsor and Newton are my favourite watercolours, and I use pans topped up with tube colours.  I mix Yellow ochre, Vandyke brown, and a touch of Cadmium orange light together.  I make sure the colour is extremely pale by diluting it with water .  Carefully, using my trusty Series 7 sable brush (size 1), I build up the shadow below the wing.

Building shadow and texture below the wing

Next, I mix up a grey.  This is Cerulean blue with a little purple and a tiny dash of a dark brown, like Vandyke.  Again, dilute this colour to a very pale tone with clean water.  Referring to your reference at all times, build up the areas of grey on the robin’s body with lots of tiny brush marks.  Overlap the first area of colour you put down, without swallowing it up.  This blending on the page tricks the eye into making a smooth transition between different areas of colour.

Think about shadows and make sure your brush marks are a little heavier and closer together where the shadows are darker.  These are around the legs and towards the back of the wings

Adding grey to the Robin chest

Step by step: Wing detail

Robin wings are brown, but it’s not a colour that comes straight from the box.  There’s a softness to the colour.  I mixed up two browns.  The first is darker and used to put detail onto the wing feathers.  It’s Vandyke brown plus a little Yellow ochre, and a tiny bit of purple.

Outline the edge of each wing feather, then with a lighter touch, add texture to each one.  Try to leave a white margin between the individual fathers, this will be knocked back by successive layers of browns in due course, but is important in supplying detail and tonal difference.

The second brown is yellower and lighter.  Yellow ochre with a touch of Vandyke, applied quite dry to the upper feathers on the wings.  Again, pick out the edges of each feather and add texture with lots of tiny brush strokes.

Wing feathers are outlined and given texture

Step by step: Wing colour

Next, add a lot of clean water to your darker brown, to make a light shade.  Once your feathers are totally dry, pop this top wash across the entire wing (except for the areas which are lightest of all.  With watercolour painting, highlights are represented by the white paper that the drawing sits on.  Allowing this to remain unpainted gives luminosity to an illustration.  And if it looks too stark, don’t worry – you can always make it darker by adding paint.)

Wing with top-wash of pale brown paint

Seen in context, the wing is the right colour, but looks pretty flat.  Add a little more colour and tonality to help clarify the structure and the detail.

Robin wing with colour but no shadows

Step by step: Wing Shadow and texture

The photo below is a little confusing as it’s more exposed and thus paler than the one above.  However, it shows the next step.  This is to add a dash of extra vibrancy to the front area of each wing feather.  This is an orange mixed with yellow ochre, and is used quite dilute and pale.

A darker brown (Vandyke plus purple) can be carefully applied to the dry feathers to add a tiny bit of extra texture, and to show shadow and definition between individual feathers.

Detail of wing with orange and darker brown detailing

Hopefully the illustration below shows how adding these details have made the wing look crisper and more realistic.

Robin with completed wing

Step by step: Robin’s orange chest

Now that the wing is done, move onto the chest.

People always say that the European robin has a red chest.  this is blatantly untrue, the chest feathers in both sexes are a vibrant orange.  This is a tough colour to work with as it instantly draws the eye.  To make sure you look at the entire illustration, not just the chest, you can add touches of this orange across the rest of the robin.  Do this in places where it’s not obtrusive (such as the wing feathers).

This orange is a mix of Cadmium orange light, a bright yellow, and a touch of yellow ochre.  You want the paint to be quite dry, somewhat like the texture of cream.  This allows each brush mark to carry plenty of colour.

Again, using the tip of your paintbrush, build up the colour with lots of tiny little brush strokes.  This gives the impression of textured feathers.  Where the orange is darker (reflecting the underlying anatomy of the bird) put the brush marks closer together and apply a little more pressure.

Once this initial layer of orange has dried, mix up a more watery and yellower colour.  I did this by adding Cadmium yellow dark to my orange, and diluting it a little with water.

Repeat the building up of little strokes, but as the colour is lighter you can afford to be a bit less precise.  this layer adds a golden glow to the chest and fills in the worst of the white spaces on the orange bib.

Working into the robin’s orange bib

Leave a small areas of white in the centre of the chest, this makes the feathers look brighter and allows the white of the paper to glow through.

Robin with chest completed

At this point, the Robin should look pretty detailed.  Still missing legs, beak and an eye; but the colour and texture and shadows of the feathered areas have all been completed.

Robin with feathers done

Step by step: Add the beak and legs

Robin beaks are almost black, so mix a dark brown by adding some blue to a crown.  Define the edges of the beak and let this dry.  Then put a top wash of a paler brown over the beak.  This will knock back the white areas.  I added some of the chest orange to the beak too; the logic being that this colour would naturally reflect upwards onto the shiny surface of the beak.

Robin with beak added

Next up is the legs.  these are a darkish brown with plenty of pink in the mix.  I used Vandyke brown plus Alizarin crimson.  Draw along the outside edges of the legs with your brush, then paint each scale along the legs.  It’s when I’m painting the legs of birds that I remember that these creatures are, in fact, feathered dinosaurs!

Dilute the pinkish brown colour to a very pale shade, and pop this over the legs.

Robin legs completed

The last thing I paint is the eye.  It’s a risk; if you mess up the eye then the whole painting is hard to fix.  But I don’t like the creatures I paint watching me as I work on them, so I only add the eye at the very end.

Robin eyes are a reddish brown.  I used a little artistic licence by making the eye pinker than in real like.  This was to trick the eye into including the pinkish legs into the picture when you look at it.  Echoing a colour across an illustration makes it easier to see the whole picture, and not to get stuck in one corner.

Likewise, I used the same eye colour to pick out some details of the darkest areas on the orange feathers.

Do the iris first, leaving an area of white paper at the base of the circle.  Then knock this back a bit with a yellower or more dilute colour.  Once dry, add the pupil.  Try to leave an obvious white circle on the pupil.  Make the transition between pupil and highlight a little less stark by softening its edge with a pale, pale grey.

Robin with completed eye

Step by step: Final details

Normally, I add the really dark darks and shadows at the end of an illustration,  In this case I didn’t, I brought in the darks as I went along.  This meant all that needed doing once the eye was completed was the grass around the robin’s feet.

Represent grass by outlining each blade of grass with green, and (once dry) putting a diluted and slightly yellower green over the top of the area.

Completed Robin with paint-box

The last step is to use a good eraser and rub out the pencil lines.  This should lift the pencil line without compromising the watercolour paint.  Use a light touch if this feels scary, and be aware that some papers don’t allow this to happen as readily as others.

And there you have it.  For more of my step by step blogs on painting birds, please check out my posts on the Pied wagtail, Barn swallow, Goshawk, Parrot, Waxwing, Golden plover, and Puffin.

The post Step by step illustration of a Robin appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

The result is the re-establishment of a breeding population of Chequered skippers in Rockingham forest, Nottinghamshire.  And, as a part of the publicity surrounding this conservation success story, Back from the Brink (Roots of Rockinghan) asked me to run an online illustrations workshop, painting this iconic butterfly.

This blog explains the steps involved in illustrating a Chequered skipper butterfly Carterocephalus palaemon. Be aware that sticking to all these steps will take a long time.  If you want a swifter result, you could go through to step 7, and then just add darker areas of colour without using the tiny brush strokes technique.

This approach is how I illustrate all the butterflies I get asked to draw.  To see more examples of my butterflies, take a look at my butterfly galleries.  There are also some step by step guides to illustrating other species of butterfly in amongst my blogs.

Here are the resources which were provided to people attending the online workshop (back in 2020).  Feel free to download and use them free of charge, but consider donating to help Butterfly Conservation if you’re able to do so.

Butterfly illustration workshop Chequered skipper Equipment list 2020

Butterfly illustration workshop Chequered skipper 2020

Butterfly Workshop Reference Sheet the Chequered Skipper

Butterfly Workshop Templates Chequered skipper

Butterfly Workshop Step by Step Visual guide Chequered Skipper

Gathering reference

Get your reference together.  A real specimen is always great, but be aware dead and pinned specimens hold their wings differently to living butterflies.  In this case, Butterfly Conservation provided me with a photo.  If you use photos you find online, do contact the photographer and ask for permission to use their images.

Photo from Butterfly conservation, with lower image showing the wings with typical Hesperiidae venation overlaid

It’s advisable to have several photos to refer to, in order to avoid perpetuating mistakes that may occur in one photo, and to give a better “feel” to what the norm for the species is like.

It’s also important to know where the veins are as these help to guide you around your drawing, and add biological accuracy.

Draw up the Butterfly

You can do this two different ways.  First, draw the butterfly by hand, drawing straight to page.  Check your measurements, and that your drawing has the correct proportions.  Do this by checking various measurements against your reference.  I draw with a mechanical Pentel P205 pencil, o.5 H or HB lead.

Second approach is simply to trace the photo and transfer the tracing to hotpress watercolour paper.  You only need to draw or trace one half of a butterfly as they are symmetrical.  Flip the tracing paper to get the other half.  Again, you need the photographer’s permission if you want to use this approach.

If you’re drawing freehand, a good way to draw a perfectly straight line (which you’ll need for antennae and veins) is simply to look at where the line is going, rather than at the tip of your pencil.  This comes in handy when you’re using a paintbrush later on.

Add the markings

If you’ve been sure to include the venation in your drawing, this isn’t too hard, just plot in the blotches of colour, using the veins as a map.  If you’re doing a tracing, you’ll already have this information on your traced drawing.

To avoid confusion, you can use a very light pencil to write the letter “Y” on the yellow spots.

Pencil tracings of the Chequered skipper without markings (top) and with markings (bottom)

Transfer the drawing to Hotpress watercolour paper

Again, there are various ways of doing this.  One is by using “tracedown” or “push-through paper” which has graphite on one side.  Insert this under your tracing and the watercolour paper, then redraw your tracing.

A second way is to draw over the back of your tracing with soft graphite, then re-draw the tracing.

The third and easiest is to make sure your drawn lines are on the side of the sheet touching the watercolour paper (you’ll need to redraw your tracing on the other side of the sheet to achieve this).  Then find a hard, blunt object, stick your tracing down with masking tape, and rub (not too hard).  The graphite will transfer onto the watercolour paper.

Check your drawing with the reference

Does it look symmetrical?  Are the wings lined up correctly?  Is the body the right width?  Fix errors now, you won’t be able to make changes once you begin painting.

Mix up your colours for a colour map / first layer of colour: Browns

The brown of the Chequered skipper is a warm, purplish colour.  Mix Vandyke brown, Cobalt blue, and purple (or similar colours) to achieve this.  Add clean water to make the colour more dilute.

First layer of colours: Browns

I use Winsor and Newton watercolours, a series 7 sable brush (size 1), and paint onto Fluid 100 Hotpress paper (unstretched).

When you’re painting, always try to follow the direction of growth – in this case, echo the direction of wing veins, and growth of the fur on the body.  The harder you press the thicker the line.  Make sure you allow the tip of the brush to follow the brush stroke; don’t push in the opposite direction to the bristles unless you want a thick and uncontrolled line.

Consistency of paint is important.  For paler colours (made pale by diluting with water, not by adding chalky white watercolour paint) it’ll be quite watery.  For darker colours you’re looking for a mix with a consistency a little like single cream, or blood.

Plot in the areas of brown, making the colour more diluted (and thus paler) towards the edges of the wing, and darker (less dilute) at the edges of the veins.  Keep highlights and veins as white paper.  In watercolour, your white paper is your brightest area of colour, so don’t swallow it up.

Don’t forget to plot in the browns of the butterfly body too, adding texture by doing longer brush strokes to emulate the hairs.

Once bone dry, and being aware of the veins, you can now rub out pencil lines showing the markings before adding the yellow.  Rubbing out over the brown paint will not lift the pigment but will remove the pencil.

Mix up your colours for a colour map/ first layer of colour: Yellows

The yellow is a mix of Naples yellow, Gamboge hue, and Cadmium orange.  Any mix of Naples yellow plus a lemon-y yellow and a touch of orange should work fine.

Apply this semi-watery mix to the edges of the yellow spots, and the edges of the wing veins.  With a lightly paler (more dilute) yellow, fill in most of the spots, only leaving white paper for highlights.

Yellows added

Add the yellows to the area of the body that need it; a horseshoe shape at the top of the thorax, the head, tail, and the clubs on the antennae.

Add details and texture: Yellows

Starting with the yellow, add depth, colour, and detail to your illustration by building up lots of tiny brushstrokes.

Mix a slightly darker yellow than before – less dilute with a tiny bit more orange.

The more strokes you make, the darker and more saturated that area will be.  For the yellows, focus on making these marks on the edges of the veins, and on the edges of the yellow spots.

Building depth of colour and texture into the yellows

Add details and texture: Browns

Mix a slightly darker brown by making a less dilute mix, and tweaking the ratio of the purple, brown and blues.

Using tiny strokes, lay down depth and colour, and build tonality and vibrance into your painting.  Focus on the edges of the veins, the wide areas of solid brown, and where the wings attach to the body.

Working into the brown of the lower wings

In the Chequered skipper, all the wing veins are dark brown, so outline these.  Make the edges of them less stark by softening them with the occasional tiny brown spot along their length.

When you come to an area of yellow, use shorter choppy lines to transition between the colours.  Lots of tiny dots will also help, and look a little like butterfly scales.

Close up showing how tiny dots resemble scales and help the eye “transition” between the brown and yellow areas

Don’t forget to work into the butterfly body.  Look at your reference to try and understand the direction of growth of the hairs, and let this inform your brush strokes.

Adding detail: Antennae and eyes

For the antennae and eyes, you need a darker colour, closer to black.  Mix some of your Brown with indigo (or a greenish dark blue) and a touch of purple.  This makes a much prettier black than a pre-mixed colour.

With a steady hand and a light touch, outline the antennae.  Then fill in the black stipes.  Once completely dry, get a very dilute bit of Cobalt blue and carefully put a thin line of this on either side, on the antennae, to provide shadow.

For the eye, using the same mixed black, outline the edge of the eye.  Paint around the highlight, where the light reflects from the compound eye.  One dry, dilute your black to a very pale grey, and add a subtle concentric circle of this around the highlight of the eye.  If you mess up, don’t worry.  You can always pick out the white shine on the eye with a bit of permanent white gouache.

Tweak your Yellows

Towards the body, and on the outside edges of the Chequered skipper’s wings, the yellow is a bit more orange.

Mix up a slightly darker yellow (by adding more orange, or even a touch of your brown).

Working into the yellows

Using the same technique of tiny brush strokes, add this colour to the areas that need it, always referring to your reference.  Don’t forget the butterfly body – there’s plenty of yellow in that horseshoe shape around the top of the thorax, on the head, and on the fluffy “tail” or base of the abdomen.

Tweak your Browns

Mix up a darker and bluer brown, by altering the ratio of the blue/ brown/ purple mix.

Using brush strokes to copy the fur, paint in lots of hairs that cover the butterfly body, always following the direction of growth.  Top with a dilute and watery brown mix, and allow to dry.

Browns are dark, only needing a little more depth

Knock back the veins on the wings

Using a brown, simply paint over the wing veins (which up til now have remained white).

Pick out your darkest darks

Mix a nice dark brown/black with your brown, blue, indigo, and purple.  Using the paint quite thick, and with the same tiny brush strokes, pick out your darkest areas.  At the junction of body and wing, where the top wing slightly overlaps the lower wing, in the middle of the large areas of crown, on the body.

Add hairs to the thorax and abdomen

Mix some Permanent white gouache with your yellow and using very light strokes, add some hairs to the thorax edges.

Do the same, but with a little black in, to add texture to the abdomen.  Don’t overdo it.  Play around til it looks right.

Completed butterfly

And here’s the whole process condensed onto one sheet:

Finished!

Well done! Go and make yourself a well-earned up of tea.

Never feel disappointed with a painting you’ve done.  If it goes well, that’s lovely.  It if doesn’t, have a think about what you can learn from it.  Did you cover up all the whites of the page too fast?  Did you overwork it?  Do you need to practise to get your brush strokes finer?

Also, be aware, using this approach takes a long time.  It took me a good 10 hours to paint this Chequered skipper, and I’ve been doing it for years.  The more you paint, the more confident you’ll become, and the better you’ll get.

Final illustration – computer scan

Conclusion

I hope this blog has proved useful.  It goes without saying that this approach will work for every butterfly or moth you choose to illustrate.

Thanks for sticking with it.  It’s a long process, and anyone who claims painting is relaxing hasn’t been doing this sort of illustration! But the end product can be something to treasure, and a good reminder of the wonderful conservation story of the Chequered skipper.  For more on the conservation project, please check out the post from Back from the Brink

Here is the video that accompanied the online workshop on illustrating this butterfly.

Limited edition giclee A4 format size prints of the butterfly are available for sale at £40 each (including postage & packaging to UK – add an extra £10 to cover p&p for international addresses).  Butterfly Conservation will receive £10 per sale to help them fund future exciting conservation projects.  Please email me on: info@lizzieharper.co.uk if you’re interested.

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The Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba yarrellii is a common garden and urban bird here in Wales.  I love the way they trot about, wagging their elongate tail up and down and cocking their black-capped heads inquisitively to one side.  We have a regular garden visitor who spends a lot of time scampering from one side of my roof to the other, pausing to look for food and to twitch its tail.  This week I’ll explain the steps I used to paint this engaging little bird.

Starting out

First, get decent reference and draw up your bird in pencil.  I often refer to the exquisite photographs of Pete Walkden who allows me to use his material for reference.  I also combine images from multiple other sources.  With the Pied wagtail, I drew an overgrown corner of my garden for the background.  I draw up my illustrations without tone or shading, almost like the page of a coloring-in book.

My favourite pencils are mechanical P205 Pentel ones with 0.3mm H or HB leads.  I draw direct onto watercolour paper (in this case Stonhenge Aqua hotpress).

Painting the white feathers

Although white feathers are white, you need to use colour to illustrate them.

I use a mix of Cereleun blue, Cobalt blue, and Purple lake (all Winsor and Newton) and only ever use my trusty Winsor and Newton series 7 sable brushes (a number 1 in most cases).

Diluting the purplish blue, I use tiny brush marks to show areas of shadow and texture on the white regions of the chest and head.  The trick is to get enough paint onto the paper to make it feel textured and tonal, but not to muddy the white.  It’s easy to add too much colour too fast, and impossible to remove it, so be careful.

Working into the Greys

Grey feathers cover the wings and shoulders and a lot of the back of the Pied Wagtail.  There’s a great deal of tonal variety in this sombre colouring.  I mix my grey from Cereleun blue, purples, a touch of burnt umber, a touch of sap green, and Cobalt blue.  It’s worth messing about with this mixing, and taking the time to get it right.

You also have to decide if you think the grey is a blueish grey, a pinkish grey, or a greenish grey.  I kept changing my mind as I painted the shoulders of the bird, and I think the inconsistency shows!

Lighter areas are achieved by using less of the tiny brush strokes, thus allowing the white of the paper to gleam through.  Diluting the colour mix with water also helps keep it pale.  Avoid mixing in whites, they make colours feel heavy and chalky.

You can darken the mix by adding black hues, or perhaps a touch of purple or Winsor blue.  I darkened the grey with some Burnt umber and Pthalo blue.  I think you can see how the tiny strokes build up to give the colour a little more depth.

Mixing Blacks

It’s easy to buy ready-mixed black watercolours, but I tend to mix my own.  This often gives the colour a richer feel.  I liken it to comparing the colours of cotton or of velvet – both may be red, but the velvet has a depth and intensity that’s missing on flat cotton.  It’s the same with mixing your blacks.

Getting to a satisfactory black can also be a lot of unexpected fun.  Recently, I’ve started adding Cadmium orange dark to many of my blacks.  Who would have thought that such a vibrant colour could be a vital component of a black?

Below, you can see that there’s the Cadmium orange, some pre-mixed Ivory black, Purple lake, and Winsor blue all added to the mix.  Make sure you make enough of it, and make a quick note of what colours you put into the brew!

(Mixing neutrals and greys is also interesting, and home-mixed hues tend to be better than pre-mixed.  For more on this check on my earlier blog.)

Painting the Wings

Using your black mix, build up a layer of colour on the wings and feathers.  It’s vital to follow the organic lines of what you’re illustrating.  Imagine your brush is following the filaments of each wing feather.  A solid line at the margin of each primary feather makes it distinct from its neighbour.

Leaving the edges of the feathers unpainted is the best way to show whites – use the paper.  Again, tiny brush marks help to make the transition between black and white less stark.

Taking a view from further away, you can see how the tiny lines end up giving something of a sense of depth to the Pied Wagtail plumage.  You can also see how, even in the black region of the chest, the paper has been left partially un-painted to give highlights.  Later, I’ll knock this back a little with a very watery purple mix.  It’s always easy to go darker with watercolour, but almost impossible to do the reverse.  Have a light touch as you paint.

Painting the legs, eyes and beak

For some reason, I always leave the legs, beak and eye until the end.  In truth this is very stupid.  If I mess up the eye, then the whole painting is irretrievable.  However, I don’t much like being peered at as I paint.  The eye always goes down last of all.

I mix a slightly purpler and thicker black, and work on the legs.  The anatomy of bird legs is interesting.  The scales and claws show their close relationship to reptiles, and it’s important to look closely at this in order to capture their texture and structure.  I often simplify this as it’s really hard to figure out exactly what’s going on unless you have a specimen right in front of you.  Leave a strip of white paper along each leg for a highlight; you can knock it back with a very pale grey wash later.

Completed Wagtail

Below is the finished bird.  When the illustration is complete, stand back and think about the lights and darks.  I often add shadows at this point, or work into the darker areas of the plumage.  I also add a drop shadow below the wing, this is a mix of dilute Cobalt blue and purple.  It helps make the white feathers look brighter.

In general, I will paint the background first then add the bird.  I wanted to get two illustrations from this painting though.  By working on the bird first, it’s far easier to isolate him as a “cut-to-white” image.  If I’d done the background, there would have been a lot of computer based erasing and tweaking to do.  As is, it’s far easier to remove any background on the computer and not risk cropping the edges of feathers.

Adding the Background

Any of you who regularly read my blogs will know I’m somewhat obsessed by illustrating grasses.  I chose to put the wagtail against some long grass in a corner of my garden, and loved playing around with the curves and composition.  I also used artistic license when illustrating the boulder.  Adding patches of yellow lichen meant I could introduce areas of bright yellow to the grass.  This helps move the eye across the page and helps the “flow” of the painting.

I’m quite pleased with the end result.  It feels rather more sombre and less cheerful than the behaviour of this dear little bird might suggest, but I think it’s a decent depiction of one of my favourite garden visitors.

For more step by steps on illustrating birds, check out my blogs on illustrating a Swallow, a Waxwing, and a Goshawk.

The post Pied Wagtail Illustration appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Pencil roughs

As always, the first step in a natural history illustration is to source your reference material and draw up a pencil sketch.  I do this directly onto watercolour paper.  Using a Pentel P205 mechanical pencil, I am now working on Fluid 100 hot press paper.

I am lucky enough to have a lot of specimens in the freezer.  This sounds macarbre, but people know what I do for a living.  If they see roadkill, or find a bird the cat brought in, they’ll often pass it on to me.  I’ve recently taken a taxidermy course so I can store these speciemens as skins, rather than alongisde the ice cream in the freezer…  For more on this, have a look at my youtube video “Birds, bugs, and bodeis in the Freezer”.

In fact, I drew the barn swallow twice.  Once from below, and once from above.

Swallow pencil rough, from below.

Swallow pencil rough, from above.

Step 1: Wing and tail feathers

I start by looking closely at my specimen,  I look at the directions of the detail on the feathers, and refer closely to the bird as I mix up a dark colour.  This is a mix of Vandyke brown, Prussian blue, and lamp black.  I tend to use Winsor and Newton pans.  You aren’t supposed to, but when they run low I top them up from the tubes.

Barn swallow and painting in progress.

Here’s a detail (below) showing the parallel paint strokes.  The white spots show the feathers’ white markings.

Working into the feathers is a matter of adding texture and body colour.  I mix a dilute brown-black.  This has more blue in than the first colour I mixed.  I apply this over the feathers and let it dry.  Once dry, I use a dark blue-black and work into the detail again.  I focus on the feather edges.

The central veins of each flight feather is outlined with vandyke brown and a prussian blue.

Detail of the Barn swallow feathers.

In the illustration below, you can see how these layers of dilute washes and detail have built up.  The feathers have colour without losing all texture.

I’ve also added a little depth to the white markings.  This involves a light touch, and a dilute mix of Cerelean blue and purple.

Step 2: Painting the body of the Barn swallow

The feathers on the swallow’s body are not white.  They’re a buff cream colour.  The trick with pale areas of feather is to only use the colour on the shades parts, and edges.  A mix of yellow ochre, purple, and a touch of brown were used here.  I applied the paint with tiny brush marks, quite dilute.

Body painted in.

Having the specimen to work from is invaluable.  You can see the way the shadows fall on the feathers, and re-arrange the,m to perfectly match the drawing.  I would have had trouble figuring out the white areas under the wings had I not had my swallow from the freezer on hand.

In this detail you can see how I used two or three shades of ochre to build up some depth.  The graphite pencil marks are still visible.

Detail of the body feathers.

Comparing the specimen to the painting shows that I have made the body paler than it is in real life.  This is a conscious decision.  If you make pale areas too yellow or grey, you sometimes end up with a bird that lookd grubby.  Keeping a light touch helps counter this effect.

Step 3: Painting the head of the barn swallow

The reds and blue-blacks on the head of the barn swallow are very distinctive.  They’re also quite tricky to mix a good colour match for.  Although I think of the throat patch as red, in fact it’s a brick-brown.  I mix this with cadmium orange, vandyke brown, a touch of purple, and a little blue.

The colours also change dramatically depending on the light.  You need to decide on one main colour and work around this.

Head of the barn swallow specimen.

I build up the texture with lots of tiny brush strokes.  Towards the centre of each area I leave a paler region.  Once the underlying texture of the feathers is plotted in, I pop a top wash of a more dilute colour on these places.  This helps provide a feeling of depth.

With the red of the throat, these highlights can be made rather yellow.  With the dark blue crown, I chose a pale blue.

Head of the swallow detail.

Step 4: Eyes, beak, and details

I always paint the beak and eyes last.  I know other illustrators who start with these details.  They maintain (and they’re probably right) that is the eye is wrong the illustration is no good.  I just feel a bit odd being stared at by my illustration as i try to bring it to life.

The drawback of working this way is that it puts a good deal of pressure on you to get the beak and eye correct!

The crucial part with the eye is to get the highlight right.  I’ll sometimes revisit this with a touch to white goauche.

I chose to put a fly in the swallow’s beak, these amazing birds are voracious predators of tiny gnats and summer-flying insects.

And here is the finished illustration.

Finished illustration of the barn swallow.

Some final thoughts

I find it strange, when I illustrate an animal like a swallow.  There’s this gorgeous, fragile specimen sitting on my desk.  It seems absurd, as you examine the detail of the feathers and the intensity of its colours, to even try and replicate this beauty on paper.

I’m also acutely aware that this tiny creature, smaller than my hand, has probably migrated from rural Wales to south Africa and back.  It seems so implausible, and so utterly extraordinary.  What chance of fate caused the hapless bird to die here, in Hay on Wye?  What other perils has it survived?

I feel incredibly privileged to work with these specimens.  They make it much easier to illustrate an animal, but I also find them very moving.

Below is the finished illustration of the other pencil rough, seen from above rather than from below.

For other step by step animal illustration blogs, including birds, please check out my blogs.

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Illustrating voles

I’ve painted voles before, and I’ll be brutally honest and acknowledge that these illustrations have been far from my best.  Voles are small and fluffy, and they tend to hold themselves hunched up.  This makes them quite tricky to capture in an illustration as any defining features are hidden in curled up fur.

Embarassingly awful Field vole illustration done in the mid 1990s

However, this vole was going to look better.  I was fortunate in that a neighbour’s cat had brought in a dead Bank vole a few weeks before this commission came in, and I’d had the opportunity to do a decent sketchbook study of the animal, and especially of the way the fur lay on the vole’s body.  The colours in this study weren’t particularly useful as Bank voles are far redder than the Field vole, but in terms of structure the sketch was invaluable.  (I did return the vole to the cat once I’d painted it).

Sketchbook study of a Bank vole

Assembling reference and drawing up the vole

I was lucky enough to have access to some rather good photos of the vole in the wild too.  There are many benefits to being on good terms with wildlife photographers.  For me, being allowed to use some of their photos for reference is key.  It’s all very well having dead voles in the freezer (which I do, and these are vital for fur colour reference).  But these photos of the animals in the wild are extremely important too.

The first thing I do when working on an illustration is to draw the animal in atonal pencil.  Just a simple line drawing.  I love working with mechanical pencils like the Pentel P205.  I work directly onto the hot-press watercolour paper.  Ill be painting on Fluid 100 , a rather fine paper which I now use as a replacement for Fabriano.   For more on this please check out my blogs (blog 1, blog 2, blog 3) comparing watercolour papers.  They’re also available as Youtube videos (Video 1, video 2, video 3).

This pencil drawing is sent to the client who can give feedback and ask for alterations.

Pencil rough of the Field vole

Painting the background

Once I’ve been given the go-ahead, I tend to focus on the background.  I think it’s important to take the background as seriously as the subject of the painting itself, so I painted these grasses as true to life as possible, they’re all common British species.  Where they overlap and cast shadows on one another I use a shadow of purple and blue which helps clarify what’s going on in the illustration.  As always, when mixing greens I’ll use ready-made paints from their pans (such as Sap green) and mix in various yellows, oranges, blues, purples, and almost always a little yellow ochre.  I keep written and visual notes of these mixes so I can replicate them.

Field vole with background grasses illustrated

Painting the darkest areas of the fur

Moving onto the mammal, the first thing I pick out is the darkest areas of fur, I use little strokes, and try to give the animal form by plotting where the darkest areas of fur are.  I always use a Winsor and Newton Series 7 paintbrush (normally a 1 or a 00) because not only do these brushes hold their sharp and accurate tips, but they also hold enough paint to allow me to paint a fair amount before having to pop the brush back into the paint mix and thus disrupt the flow.  For the vole, I used a mix of yellow ochre, purple, brown, and a touch of cadmium orange light (I tend to use Winsor and Newton watercolours, but am happy to use other brands too.)

Painting in the darkest fur on the Field vole

I build into the darkest regions with repeated little brush strokes, especially around the eye, ear, and rear of the vole.  I also mix up a slightly grey pink and, using a watery tint of this colour, I pop down the pink that you can see around the eyes, on the tail, on the paws, and on the nose of the animal.  It’s important to blend this is a little, there’s no sharp definition between these areas and the fur on the vole itself. The illustration has to echo this.

Ears, paws, eys ring and tail plotted in

Painting the fur

Next, I mix up a slightly lighter fur colour.  This mix includes a higher ratio of yellow and yellow ochre, and is a little paler than the initial brown.  I layer this on top of the first layer, and make sure the length of my brush strokes relate to the length of the fur on the animal.  Very short strokes are required around the muzzle of the vole, longer ones on the body.  This colour is also useful as you can layer the fur along the tail, thus easing the visual transition between the fur and the skin of the tail.

The chest area is leaf white as Field voles (like many mammals) have paler stomach and chest regions than the fur on their backs.

I now do what I almost always do: get carried away and forget to take progression photos.  Apologies.

First, I work into that pale chest and belly fur, introducing areas of blue grey.  I continue these into the fur on the rest of the vole.  When you look closely at it, the vole’s fur is brownish above with a soft grey under-layer.  My painting tries to emulate that.

Next, there’s another layer of even paler brown fur that carries across the whole vole.  Yellow ochre and orange, and a light touch are required for this.

Finally, a very light and wet top wash covers the whole animal (and gets blotted off the stomach almost immediately).  This unifies the look of the creature.  I make sure the tail, paws, and ears are touched with this too.

Adding the final details

Finally, the minute details which help pull the illustration together.  Tiny claws, the eyes, the nostrils, and the whiskers.

Finished Field vole, Microtus agrestis.

A lot of illustrators will always do the eye first; if you mess up the eye the whole painting is destroyed.  I always leave it ‘til last, I’m not sure why.  I think I enjoy the “magic” of bringing an animal to life at the very end of the illustrating process.  Rather like painting the leaves and saving the flowers until last, I think doing the eye is the treat that makes the picture feel complete.  I guess it ties in with me always leaving the tastiest morsels on my plate until the end of a meal…saving the best ‘til last!

Hopefully this blog explains the steps involved in completing a natural history illustration of a small mammal.  I, for one, am much happier with this vole than with the rather embarrassing attempt shown at the top of this blog.  At least I’m getting better with age, what a relief!

For more animal step by step illustrations, follow the link.

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Sleeping Bear Honey Farm in the USA have commissioned me before to produce artwork for their honey labels, botanical illustrations of the Orange blossom and of the Tupelo (click here for a blog on the steps involved in producing these).  This time they wanted something a little different, a landscape.

Sweet orange Citrus sinensis artwork for another Sleeping Bear honey label

Drawing up the pencil rough of the label

The brief was to produce an idealised scene of a wild flower meadow.  This was to be full of bees with beehives (or skeps), and some honey dripping out.  It was to reference the Florida pan handle where this particular honey is made.

After getting the reference together and finding out what flowers grew in the Florida pan handle and what the area looked like, I got out my trusty mechanical pencil (a Pentel P205) and drew up the landscape.  I made sure there were plenty of flowers, plenty of bees, and that the skeps were the sort favoured by my client.

Background

First up is a very pale background wash; this layer is water with a tiny bit of pigment.  Sap green and yellow ochre for the foreground, ceruelean for the sky.  I cover the entire page, except for the foreground images which I leave white.  This means there’ll be the impression of background, except for the bees and skeps which will have sharper contrasts between their lights and darks and will therefore be the focus.  The background wash at the front of the painting is brighter and more intense, this makes this area seem closer to the viewer.

Landscape with background wash

Working into the background greens

Next I work into the greens.  This takes ages, and I mix several green colours.  These become bolder and yellower as we approach the foreground.  It needs to give the impression of healthy distant foliage.  I build this effect with lots of dabbing, and little rough brush strokes.  As ever, I use Winsor and Newton brushes, Series 7(no. 1 size).

The leaves in the foreground are untouched.  I’ll paint these individually later on.

Distant greens

Here’s a close up to see how the colour and texture is built up.

Close up of foliage effect

Adding the distant flowers

Getting the flowers in comes next.  Again, it’s time consuming, but I use yellows to build up the effect of lots of blossoms filling the field.  More contrast, detail and intensity in the foreground helps give a suggestion of distance and depth.

Plotting in the distant yellow flowers

You can see here how I paint in an outline of each flower in yellow then pop a brighter tint of a paler yellow on top.

Putting a bright yellow wet tint on the flower petals

Next, I repeat the process for the pink flowers; details in a darker shade of crimson and the top wash just a watery tint of this.

Painting in the pink flowers

Foreground vegetation

Now to focus on the foreground.  I get a bit bored of leaves sometimes, so tend to paint these in first, leaving the detail of the flowers as a treat for later.  Bolder and brighter hues of green are used here, with suggestions of shadow and venation which were omitted for the more distant plants.

Foreground leaves are painted in

Illustrating the flowers in the foreground

Onto the yellow foreground flowers.  these need to be bright, but also have contrast.  Using more detail than before, I repeat the process of painting in the structure and detail of each flower petal, then popping a bright paler yellow wash on top.  At this stage I’ll leave some whites as highlights, only covereing them with a very pale yellow wash once the rest of each flower is dry.  This helps give tonality.

Painting in the yellow flowers in the foreground

Here’s a detail of the process in action:

Next, I’ll paint in all the Rudbeckia flowers.  These are quite fun, yellows and reds.  I use the same technique as before; detail then a top wash.  I leave the centre of the flowers white for now; both the yellow and these blloms have similar centres so I’ll blitz them all at once after the petals are completed.

More foreground flowers are painted in

I take on the central discs of the Compositae; they’re a tawny gold colour.  A bit of texturing on the bottom right hand side stops them from looking flat.

Painting the pink flowers

Pink flowers!  I use winsor and newton watercolours.  But for these pink flowers I rely on a tint.  A tint is a watered down and paler version of a colour.  Doctor Martin’s Hydrus watercolor ink 5A Quinacridone magenta is the ideal candidate.  By itself it looks atificial and too bright.  But when ,ixed with a touch of crimson it’s perfect.  The intensity of these inks is unmatched.  They’re fade-resistant too; I use them a lot to add a kick to my colours.

Below is a detail that shows how some areas of the petals are left white.  You can clearly see the pencil lines.  Luckily these rub out despite the watercolour on top of them.  You can also see that I’ve revisited the yellow flowers.  I used a darker orange to give a little more shadow and definition.

Close up of the foreground flowers

Illustrating the beehives supports…and the bees

I paint the wooden supports that the bee hives are perched on.  This mix is mainly ochres with slightly darker brown lines to suggest wood.   Next I apply myself to the main bee in the illustration.  This has to be right or the whole painting will look silly.  I work from dead specimens and take a long time trying to ensure the bee is fluffy, and has the correct colouration.

Bee and hive supports completed

Here’s a detail of the bee.  To be honest I’m not entirely satisfied with him, he’s too dull and overworked.  He’s passable though, which is lucky as it means I won’t have to start all over again.

Close up of the worker bee

Painting the skeps or beehives

Skeps next.  These are a sort of straw gold, so I use yellows, ochres, and naples yellow.  Painting in the texture of these hives is rather soothing and I enjoy myself.  Painting in the remaining bees is mroe exacting, and require a tiny brush (a No.000) and me holding my breath as I do the tinier details.  Again, the bees aren’t magnificent, but they’re good enough.

Skeps and distant bees complete, working into the texture of the skep in the foreground.

Here’s a detail of the skeps and the bees; because the bees are distant and so small (think how tiny they’ll be when reproduced on the honey label!) they can be less intensley detailed than the main one:

Detail

Adding the dripping honey

We’re getting close to finishing now.  The main skep needs completing, which is easy in comaprison to the bees and the detail on the flowers and leaves.  Once that’s done it’ll just be the dripping honey.  This has to glow.  Then it’s just the remaining foreground bees.

The reason I’ve left these elements until last is that this illustration is almost layered.  You can only move onto each element as the steps involved is sorting out the background get completed.  The main skep goes in.  Once it’s there I’ve got a background for the flying bees and dripping honey.

Detail showing the texturing of the straw of the skep

Honey!  Distant honeycomb within the skep is painted in dark reds and golds (I’ll add the details of the comb structure once the yeloows have dried), and then I paint the  river of honey pouring out.  (I am aware this is fictional, no self respecting bee would allow such a waste of such a precious resource!)  Making the honey shiny just means ensuring there’s a smooth transition from dark gold to white, and ensuring the white of the page is left to suggest the glinting highlights.

The honey is added

Adding the foreground bees

The final step is the remaining three bees, and any tweaking or addition of shadows to add depth.  Again, I use a smaller brush on the bees and take my time.  They end up a little more convincing than the one we see in side view, but I think the take home message is probably that I need to do more practice when it comes to painting honey bees!

Final honey label with flying bees and honeycomb texture added.

I submitted the artwork and the client seemed really pleased, which is always a relief and a treat.  He also sent me a massive box of absolutely lovely honey and honey products along with my remittance – I wish all my clients were so generous!

Illustrations and honey gifts from Sleeping Bear Farms

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Gathering reference

As always, the first step is to assemble your reference.  I use as wide of a range of reference as I can; this decreases the chance of “copying” mistakes, and helps show the main features to highlight.  With the ladybird, I’ve recently done a whole project illustrating different British species of ladybird, so had plenty of reference (and my own existing illustrations!) to work with.

There’s a youtube film that accompanies this blog which shows a time lapse film of the ladybird illustration.

Drawing up the pencil rough

Since Coleoptera are more or less symetrical (like most insects), you only need to draw up one side, then can flip and trace down the mirror image to get your picture.  I draw up the insect in atonal pencil, I favour propelling pencils such as the Pentel P205, and draw direct onto the Fabriano hot press watercolour paper I’ll be painting on.

Pencil rough of the Ladybird; the lighter pencil lines are guides for the main areas of shine on the elytra (wing cases).

The post Step by Step Ladybird Watercolour illustration appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

The Goshawk is a gorgeous bird of prey, and has long been used in falconry.  They’re really hard to spot, and are fearsome predators. (A recent and beautiful book on the Goshawk is well worth a read;  H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald)  Therefore, getting good reference for them is very tricky.  Luckily I had permission from some top ornithology photographers to use their photos for reference purposes, and thus could get  the information I needed.

Drawing up the pencil rough

After drawing up the Goshawk in pencil (I like mechanical pencils like the Pentel P205) onto watercolour paper, I struggled with the feet.  All the ref. I had showed the talons partially obscured.  Using a hopeful outlook, a bit of biological knowledge, and various different sources of reference I pieced the hawk’s feet together.  Even now I feel this is the weakest part of the illustration.

Painting the darkest areas of the Goshawk feathers

Next I plot in the structure and texture of the feathers using a mix of Vandyke brown, yellow ochre, sap green, cobalt blue, purple, cadmium orange light, and cerulean blue (no, it really did take all of them to get near the correct shade of brown!).  Generally I stick to Winsor & Newton watercolours, and needed to throw out my old number 1 series 7 brush in favour of a new one for this job.  As I build up the feathers with repeated tiny strokes, I try to give extra weight to one side of each feather as this gives depth and texture to the wings.

I also work into the white feathers by suggesting shadows.  These have to be bold in colour to ensure the feathers look white when the illustration is complete, and I use a mix of cobalt blue and violet, very watery and lightly applied.

A unifying brown wash goes onto the wing area – Vandyke brown mixed with yellow ochre and lots of water.  I suggest  the central rachis of each feather on the wing.  Mixing Vandyke brown with a violet and a deep greenish blue, I paint in the beautiful chest feathers.  Tiny little brush strokes are needed, and again I try to put more weight on one side of each feather.  I believe I made the Goshawk chest region too dark and not quite as stripy as it should be; an example of slightly overworking a painting.

Illustrating the feet and beak

After so much feathery work, it’s a relief (and a challenge) to plot in the bright yellow expanses of the bird’s beak, and to start building up the structure of the legs.  It’s an alarmingly bright yellow, so I used cadmium yellow light and Indian yellow with only a touch of yellow ochre to knock it back.

Getting the murderously sharp point of the beak and the claws acute enough inevitably proves a real challenge, and I find I stop breathing as I paint the tiny dark lines that suggest these apexes.

More washes build up, the wing and tail feathers took about five increasingly dark washes before they started to look like they had any depth.  I work further into the purple of the shadows under the wing and on the rear leg, and paint in shadows on the tail.  More tiny strokes give a better sense of form to the back of the hawk’s neck and to his facial markings.

A yellow wash is applied to the legs, and I work further into the beak and claws.

Painting the eye and completing the illustration

I always leave the eye til last, I always have done.  This was tricky, as every written description talked about the fierce red eye of the adult male goshawk; but none of the photos or illustrations showed the bird with anything other than a yellow eye.  I decided to go with the written ornithological descriptions, but err on the side of caution by making certain there were plenty of yellow highlights within the depth of the iris.

Another couple of brown washes on the wings and tail, and a little more work on the shadows on the legs, tail, and superciliary area saw the bird nearing completion.  A bit more work on the pupil (always the hardest part of a painting to get right), and a touch more dark on both talons and beak, and the bird was complete.

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