Thursday, May 21, 2009

"Solid Gold Cute"



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This is my second attempt at the mouse and I think I may try again still. Not that I don't like this (I do!), but I want to try for another angle. I want to thank Jean Ranstrom for emailing me about painting gold. She said: "when working with gold, it is the high contrast between the highlight and darks that will give you that great shine, so you may have to make some darks darker and punch up the highlights." I found I didn't have to fudge the darks (or the lights), I just had to paint them as dark (and light) as they really were! And that was the trick - my brain was telling me different things. And the highlights I found worked best with a mix of cad yellow, a tiny bit of cad red, and white (but not too much white). The rest of it is basically various shades of brown, which I made from mixing yellow, blue and red.

I have a workshop coming up in Salado, TX (June 4-6) that was full but 3 people have dropped out for various reasons. It's really a great place, if you're considering it. Contact Andreeva to register.

Click here to see progress on the studio.

6 comments:

Bobbi Heath said...

What a mouse! And he does look more golden. I think the light (but not lightest) yellowish strokes are especially good, for example on the left ear. And I love the inquisitive look. Way to go!

JanettMarie said...

yeah, yeah, yeah, this is better, more convincing that this is a gold color...

-jM

Carolina said...

Wow, that IS golden! I thought this was going to be a very difficult challenge, but you delivered it gracefully...

JanettMarie said...

Do! try again...

Daniel Peci said...

Its really cute indeed!

Matous 1946 said...

I absolutly love the way you painted the highlights on a round object with great shapes that have angles. They make my eye dance around the mouse's figure. Terrific! Thanks!