More Dabblings

[liralen]

akuni requested black and white bamboo and a hummingbird with cherry blossoms and was willing to pay for postage, so I tried.



First just a warmup of something that didn't come out anything like I wanted it to, but it's nicely symbolic or something....


Then the bamboo:


It that one okay, Akuni?

Then a first attempt at the hummingbird and cherry blossoms. I'm keeping this one for myself, the bird came out drabber than I liked, and the branch faded, but I like the placements a lot.


Learning from the first, I brightened up the colors and tried to flip the bird from my reference (Walter Foster's Chinese Brush Painting) and made one wing inside out, so I threw that one away. Then I finally got this:


Hope you like it, akuni.

Comments

[marith.livejournal.com]

Oh, those are awesome, especially the last one! I love how the "trunk" fades from dark to brown to grey, and the different pinks in the clusters of blossoms. The tree really looks like it has depth. And the bird is very cool too, the crisp black wingtips and then the speckled colors of the head and chest, and the almost Egyptian eye. Neat!

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a lot of the wood effects have to do with loading both brown and black on the brush and letting the mingled colors just go... that's fun.

I love the details that you point out and saw... That's so cool. *smiles* Thank you so much!! *dances*