Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Painting Grass

I'm not having the easiest time at the moment, plus I've decided to tackle some of the things I find difficult.
Roma's in season and we don't want to mate her this time, but she has other ideas and is madly flirting with anything that walks past her.

With having the three male dogs who are all now squaring up to one another life is a bit complicated. Clinton caught Rio on his muzzle this afternoon and must have damaged a small blood vessel. I managed to get my hands round the wound before he shook the blood all over the walls and carpet, he only managed to cover about half the house. So there I was stuck with the blood pouring over my hands because I couldn't let him go. Eventually I got the bleeding stopped and sat holding a packet of frozen peas over his nose to try to reduce the swelling. He is fine now and friends with Clinton again because Roma is banished to the Conservatory with the door firmly closed.

I always seem to get myself into difficulties with grass, ending up with it fairly stylised which I don't want. So I decided to paint a cat which is lying in, you guessed it, grass. The grass is mostly dark with just some that is in sunlight.

I started by painting my darks in India Ink because it will be easy to work over in coloured pencil. I then added Sepia and Hookers Green acrylic to the next areas, with some Sap Green to lighten some stalks a touch.

I put an Ultramarine and Sepia wash over the darkest area to push it back further and so far so good.

2 comments:

Tracy Hall said...

What a great idea, Gayle! I am currently painting acres of the stuff - its nice to know you aren't too fond of it either :) I'm interested to see how you tackle it with cps.

I'm glad your dogs have settled down a bit, not much fun!

Gayle Mason said...

Thanks Tracy, I'm finding it easier to paint in acrylic rather than use coloured pencils because I can use washes to push some of it back.
Roma is still flirting madly but the males have all been peaceful today.