#i adore the textures + the subtle gradients used here

[kirbyspotted]

kirby spotted! 💫

another kirby boss butch sprite redraw

[ukcps]

Congratulations to Monique Castellani-Kraan for winning Best in Show at the UKCPS Keswick Exhibition 2021.

Monique has kindly share some background information on her wonderful piece Kisses in Blue.

I drew my first hyacinth macaw back in 2015, and it was wonderful being able to revisit the same subject again with “Kisses in Blue”. Parrots are honestly such a delight to draw. Their colours are bright and happy, and they have so much character. I will also always jump at the chance to get out my blue coloured pencils!

I started work on this piece back in January. After a long spate of only making miniature pet commissions over the Christmas period, which was slowly sending me into a spiral of madness, I decided to overcompensate by starting my largest drawing to date, at 40 x 50cm (16 x 20 inches approx).

As someone with a background in digital painting, I like to do all of my sketches and compositions digitally nowadays to transfer to paper. That way my expensive watercolour paper stays free of eraser marks and errant sketch lines. It saves a lot of time in the long run, and if I mess up I can very easily just print out the sketch again to start over. I don't know what I'd do without my iPad!

This drawing proved to be a little intimidating because of the size I was working at. I ended up setting it aside for a few months. You know that famous "fear of the blank canvas" we've all experienced? This one hit me hard. I got a tiny section of the eye and surrounding feathers done and then proceeded to swiftly run away, back to the safety of drawing miniatures! A few months later, I finally decided to stop hiding and to give this piece a proper go. As I got into the rhythm of it I quickly felt myself being sucked into that "zone" of intense focus - where time just slips away until it's suddenly dark outside and you've skipped a meal!

Now that I had finally got my toes wet, I was gaining confidence. Art is a bit like exercise - it takes effort and routine to get into the swing of it - but once I do, I feel like I'm flying! With every new drawing I'm reminded of just how much I adore coloured pencils and how fun the process is.

Translating the reference photo’s feathers on the left macaw’s cheek was proving to be a bit of a challenge. I could only stare for so long at the complicated mess of shadows without going cross-eyed - so I decided to treat myself to tackling the beak first instead. If ever you find yourself in a rut with a painting, look for the deepest, darkest shadows in your reference, and block those in first. You will have a much easier time once they're there. Here, the darkest shadows were the inside of the macaws' mouths, so I put my much-loved Polychromos black to work, blending with paint thinner in between each layer and tinting it with Luminance Dark Indigo to get it nice and deep. Now that the darkest shadows were blocked in, I would have a much easier time in the areas surrounding it. That shadow became my reference point for judging the values for the beak, skin and feathers nearby.

I used Daler Rowney Low Odour Thinner to blend my pencils in between layers, with a flat taklon brush. I primarily used it in the first few layers of the underpainting. The yellow skin on the beak was a tricky customer with this - my blending brushes had to be impeccably clean, or else I would end up turning it green with the blues being so close by. In addition, I didn't want the very pale yellows getting contaminated by the oranges that are in the shadows. I made sure to carefully wipe my brush off thoroughly on some paper towel before blending in small areas at a time.

Beaks are so much fun to draw! They have a lot going on, from subtle colour shifts, to chips and cracks and ridges. The texture is a treat for the eyes! Here, I started by creating a gradient of soft earthy purples, greys and creams in the underpainting. At this stage I used mostly a mix of Luminance and Polychromos pencils. For underpaintings, I like to go darker than what the final result will be - though some would say I go a little TOO dark (coloured pencil is technically a light to dark workflow because they are mostly transparent).

After blending it with OMS, and making sure it's still a little damp, I go in with my pale tones from the Derwent Lightfast, Caran d'Ache Luminance and Holbein lines. These brands are soft and have more wax than oil in them, making them very creamy and more opaque than brands like Polychromos. Because the paper is still saturated with paint thinner, the pencil melts as it makes contact with the paper, making it go on super thick, even though I'm only pressing gently. This is my dirty little secret for how I work from dark to light in all of my coloured pencil pieces. The paper you're using, of course, is paramount for this technique too. If you're not using a good paper, you're going to run out of tooth extremely quickly using this technique. This piece was drawn on Saunders Waterford Hot Pressed 300gsm- and I wholeheartedly recommend it!

However, I just want to add that if you have an area or texture you want to keep REALLY light, for example a large white crack in the beak, you should draw that in first before doing anything else. That way, when you put your underpainting over it and blend with paint thinner, the white detail you added first will show through, clear as day! (This is great for whiskers on cats and dogs for example) You can also use a ceramic cutter to do this afterwards instead, though personally I have yet to use one myself.

After finishing the beaks, it was time to face the feathers on the birds’ bodies head-on. As always, I block in my darkest shadows first and then my underpainting, giving it a good blend out with plenty of OMS. This is so that I don't get lost in a sea of repeating shapes. Without doing this, I find it's very easy for your artwork to end up all the same value with not enough contrast between the highlights and shadows. I also rough in where I want each contour feather to be on the bird’s chest with a dark blue, though I only very gently line them in with my pencil so I can still move things around if needed while I build on the textures and detail.

Once the underpainting is done I am free to start pulling out those details. I went feather-by-feather, preferring to go in with my lighter coloured pencils first, gently pulling out each feather’s barbs. After that, staying mindful of how the lighting is hitting each feather, I used my mid tone and darker pencils to work in between each barb, gradually building up shadows. I also glazed in shadows over this with a very gentle hand to give the overall shape of the feather form and depth.

It can be tempting to rush through areas like this where there is lots of uniform texture, but it’s important to stay patient and take your time. Body feathers especially can become indecipherable after a certain point, because they all overlap and merge into each other. Sometimes even though the reference photo is sharp as a tack and super clear, there is just so much going on that it wouldn't 'read' well as an artwork. So I used my reference to help me with the general structure and composition, and to inform me on how the shapes and textures should look. But I didn’t stress about getting it exact.

Once you have good knowledge of a subject, after doing study sketches and looking at lots of different references, you can be a lot freer with how you approach your final artwork. A lot of the colours, textures and feather placement in ‘Kisses in Blue’ were not there in the reference. I opted to go for a much warmer, cheerful blue. The reference I was using was also fairly flat as it was taken on an overcast day, meaning the lighting was quite diffused. I made my artwork brighter than my reference material, pushing the overall contrast between the midtones and the deepest shadows. I also found myself intermingling soft lilac hues and subtle teal with my Polychromos and Luminance pencils, almost over-exaggerating the birds’ vibrancy. I tried not to stress too much about feathers either - while getting the shape and placement of feathers right on wings can be paramount to a realistic piece, the same does not apply for contour feathers and down feathers. As long as you stick to the right shapes and sizes, paying attention to the bird’s form, you don’t need to get it looking exactly like your reference.

I try my best to bring myself out of my comfort zone with each new drawing. This piece was my biggest challenge yet – quite literally. I’m glad I pushed myself to draw larger than I am used to and I can see why a lot of coloured pencil artists like working at this size – while it is more time-consuming, you have much more room to breathe and fit details in, that would normally get lost in a smaller piece. With my choice of composition and lighting, I wanted to convey a feeling of intimacy and closeness with the birds that I don’t think I would have been able to achieve were this drawing smaller.

[roxysbeachlife]

30 Chic Teal DIY Decor Ideas To Bring This Year’s Trendiest Color Into Your Home

Pantone’s color of the year this year is just … wrong. Seriously, they picked some light shade of green. I’m not seeing that color in that many places, but what I am seeing is TEAL. Seriously—teal dressers, teal bookshelves, teal walls, teal everything. At least where home décor is concerned, this is the ultimate trending hue.

Of course, it isn’t just one particular shade of teal. It is more like a range of teals and aquas. But for the most part, we are talking about a medium blue with undertones of green.What is so appealing about teal? I think I can come up with a few different reasons why teal is suddenly everywhere:

It is a “neutral” color with restraint and sophistication. Actually, it isn’t far off from that default wallpaper color that used to be included in super old versions of Windows. So it has an air of professionalism about it—which wouldn’t make it a bad choice for home or office décor, actually.

It grabs attention—but is muted enough to fit into old-fashioned styles. In a largely white interior (very popular right now), teal stands out. It instantly draws the eye. But there is still a sense of subtleness and softness about it, which means it fits well with more rustic, old-world décor styles which are trending at the moment.

Like the ocean, it is instantly refreshing. Teal is close to the color of the sea, so it can even be used to evoke a sense of the ocean—especially when it is used in ombre décor. Darker shades represent deeper depths, fading into paler shades and finally into white—which is like sea foam.

It is a “warm” shade of blue. In terms of warm and cool hues, teal is definitely a “warmer” blue than say for example cobalt. If you prefer warmer tones in your home but still want to use blue, this makes it a good choice, since it will not make your interior feel austere.

Confused about warm and cool shades of blue—particularly given that overall, blue is denoted as a cool color? This is a brief but useful discussion on color analysis which can help you make sense of things. The better your understanding of color theory is, the easier it will be for you to match teal with existing décor.

By the way, there is a pretty fuzzy line between teal, aqua and turquoise, so I am featuring all three below (one person’s teal does seem to be another person’s turquoise).

So now that you understand more about the appeal of teal, let’s take a look at some teal DIY décor projects which you can incorporate into your own home!

1. Go for a muted, rustic look.

Here is a teal dresser uploaded by a Pinterest user which I absolutely love! The teal has been brushed on lightly so that some of the original dark wood still shows through. The dark wood color has been left alone on the top so that it forms a contrast with the drawers and the sides. A candelabra in the same teal color has been placed on top to complete the look.Source: Pinterest Originals

2. Here is how to do a color wash on a dresser to achieve a lovely teal hue.

At the link below, you can find a detailed tutorial which teaches you how you can create a teal wash for a dresser. If you check the link, you can also see some incredible before and after pictures; you seriously would never recognize this dresser—it has changed so much!Source: rootsandwingsfurniture

3. Use the Bermuda blending paint technique to create some startling contrasts with teal.

This is a technique where you blend a couple of similar shades (like different hues of teal and blue) along with a contrast shade (like a coppery orange) to achieve a look similar to an aged metallic patina. At the link, you can read through an excellent detailed tutorial with lots of images both of this project and others which use the same paint technique.Source: realitydaydream

4. Paint some sections of wood in teal and leave others bare.

Here is another Pinterest image which was uploaded by a user. As you can see, another great way of achieving contrast is to paint some sections of wood with teal and leave others alone. This once again creates a meeting of warmer and cooler colors, and draws emphasis to the painted teal wall on the left.Source: pinterest

5. Learn how to get a weathered teal finish for your furniture.

If you enjoy the muted, rustic look you can get with teal, then you are going to adore this tutorial! This finish has the added appeal of leaving the underlying wood grain visible, whereas a full teal wash hides the texture. So if you like the look of painted furniture but don’t want to lose the grain, this is a great technique to try.Source: lovelycraftyhome

6. Teal makes for a beautiful contrast with metallic design elements.

The transformation of this desk is beyond incredible. Check out the post so you can see what it looked like before the paint job. What I really love about this one is the color contrast between the teal and the drawer handles.Source: simplesoutherncharmblog

7. Paint an ombre teal dresser with a “highlighted” look.

This is one of the most elegant furniture transformations I have seen. Here we have a dresser which has been done over in teal with a subtle ombre gradient. A layered “highlighting” technique was used to add depth, which works beautifully with the ornate flourishes that were already a part of the dresser’s original design.Source: traceysfancy

8. Give a boring nightstand an exquisite teal makeover.

I definitely recommend taking a look at the blog post where I found this picture (see the link)! This nightstand has a clean, contemporary look—very different from many of the more rustic, old-fashioned teal furniture projects I have shared so far. It started out as a very bland item of furniture, and was turned into something truly exceptional by this talented crafter. Check it out!Source: livingbeautifullydiy

9. Dark teal can have a very refined look.

While many of the projects I have featured so far are a medium teal, here is one in a very dark teal. Rather like the very first one that I shared, the dark wood on top has been left in its natural hue to provide contrast and keep the piece grounded.Source: justthewoods

10. Teal can work very well on a table.

This table also has a brown top with teal legs, and it looks phenomenal! Check out the post to watch the entire process.Source: ayanovich

11. This bed in rustic teal is absolutely enchanting.

Now this may be one of my favorite uses of teal ever! This rustic bed would look amazing even if it were all just in the natural wood tones, but the pale teal really helps to soften up the look and make it more homey. You can also see that it works nicely on the nightstand.Source: pinterest

12. Teal can make a bold, modern statement in the right context.

The black and white stick-and-peel wallpaper inside this nightstand really adds some cool contemporary pizzazz. In contrast with the bright aqua hue, it is simply mesmerizing.Source: spoonflower

13. Use teal to frame a monogram.

Here is another project where teal has been paired up with black and white for an eye-catching look. Only in this case, the frame has a rustic look to it, which in itself is a contrast with the modern look of the zigzag design.Source: thebaezablog

14. Spruce up your jewelry box with some aqua, teal, or turquoise.

Previously a boring brown color, this jewelry box is now a bold aqua that just shouts for attention.Source: thespeckleddog

15. Give a dresser a beach vibe by painting it in ombre teal colors.

Have you noticed that teal is a really, really popular color for desks and dressers? Here is one which features a light teal at the bottom, moving up through a gradient of lighter blues to white. It has a lovely seaside feel to it.

16. Here is how to paint your steps with ombre teal colors.

I can’t thank this blogger enough for this one. There is another much more popular image of a teal ombre staircase floating around, but nobody seems sure of its source. This one on the other hand was easy to trace back to a blog, where the creative DIYer who worked on it provided a ton of information on the project. Be sure to take a look!Source: diysquirrel

17. Make beautiful teal ombre soaps.

Seriously, these soaps look so delicious I want to eat them up … well, okay, maybe not literally. But they do remind me of cakes with some kind of marvelous golden frosting on top. Anyway, would these not look awesome in any bathroom?Source: doodlecraftblog

18. Dip-dye your curtains teal.

Check out this link to read about how you can dip-dye ordinary white curtains so that they fade to teal at the bottom. These are so gorgeous!Source: nostalgiecat

19. This hutch is charmingly old-fashioned.

I love the weathered, time-worn look of this hutch, which has been painted with a muted color. It’s not quite teal, but it is in the same ballpark.Source: Pinterest Originals

20. Turquoise and dark walnut work beautifully together.

Check out the gorgeous contrast between the dark walnut and teal finishes here. What is really cool about this piece is the way the color contrasts were used to draw the eye to the different flourishes in the wood. There were no random choices here—everything serves a purpose.

Source: Pinterest Originals

21. Beautiful blue painted buffet.

Is it bad that I don’t know what a buffet is in terms of furniture? Well, regardless of what it is, I can say one thing for sure, and that is that this one is beautiful!Source: thirtyeighthstreet

22. A simple teal dresser paint job.

Painted by Julie Peterson of Simple Redesign, this dresser indeed has a simple and refined look to it. Be sure to check out the source link to see more of her portfolio, which includes many other lovely furniture repaints in blue, green and everything in between.Source: simpleredesign

23. Spray painting works surprisingly well.

Don’t fancy the idea of picking up a paintbrush and worrying about hiding your brush strokes (or artfully working them into the look you are creating)? It turns out that spray paint can work just as well. Check out these beautiful results.Source: stiltskinstudios

24. Use teal for exteriors, not just interiors.

Isn’t this garden shed absolutely adorable? The teal paint with the white trim looks amazing. The trellis and the windmill help to complete the look, making this an incredibly inviting place to relax for the afternoon.Source: kabamfamily

25. Or do both your interior and your exterior in teal.

Here is an absolutely gorgeous shed which is teal inside and out (so far as I can tell). I highly recommend visiting the source link so that you can see more interior shots. I am totally envious of the person who owns this place!Source: sfgirlbybay

26. Check out this imaginative sparkling mermaid lingerie chest.

The sheer artistry which has gone into this teal chest is inspiring. While the teal is beautiful all on its own, it is when you pull the drawers open that you really see the magic of this incredible design.Source: jburnscreate

27. Give your kitchen a teal makeover.

The teal paint on these kitchen cabinets makes for a lovely splash of the unexpected amid otherwise warm colors in the wood, tiles and walls. I can imagine that this room now has a totally different vibe than it did before.

Source: princetonkitchencabinet

28. Integrate lots of different colors for a beautifully textured look.

This paint job is cool because it incorporates lighter and darker blues as well as some other surprising colors—I think I can see hints of magenta in there offsetting the blues. It comes from the aptly-named blog “The Turquoise Iris.” Be sure to visit to see some other cool teal and turquoise décor projects.Source: theturquoiseiris

29. Check out two more custom teal finishes from The Turquoise Iris.

Here are two more lovely teal painted furniture projects from The Turquoise Iris; you can view more photos of both in the same entry (linked below). Once again, you can appreciate the artist’s use of startling splotches of color—yellows, tans and greens where you least expect them. This is likely a technique she has brought over from the flower paintings she makes.Source: theturquoiseiris

30. Teal makes for a stunning backdrop for a realistic design.

Finally, here is one of the most amazing teal furniture items I have seen! This one gets shared a lot, and it’s well deserved. Those butterflies look so real, and the teal provides for the perfect backdrop, helping each of them to stand out.Image/Source: instagram

Conclusion: Teal Is a Vibrant, Refreshing Color That Can Complement Any Home

Whether you are looking for a new color to paint your dresser, you are thinking of redoing your walls, or you are searching for an idea for adding more color to tables and chairs, pillows, or anything else in your home, teal is an excellent choice. It is one of this year’s trending colors, and now you have the inspiration you need to bring the magic of teal to your own abode!

BY VANESSA BEATY

Filed under: DIY Tagged: Home, ombre, paint, pantone, teal, turquoise from WordPress http://ift.tt/2jV1sXS via IFTTT