You might recall I’m working on the artwork for my 81 year old next door neighbour’s custom trike…
My current job is the artwork on the panier box lids. Armed with my updated skills from Marissa’s workshop, I completed the first box which was a wolf scene and have started on the second box – a mountain lion. The whole trike has a Native American Indian feel to it, which is why I chose these two animals.
Here’s the step by step. Enjoy!
Starting on wolves
Starting the sky
Moonlit sky
Starting main wolf
Adding texture
Finished detail on main wolf
Closer look
SStatring on the second panier box with the Mountain Lions
OK, so as I promised here’s how I got on at the Wildlife workshop delivered by Marissa Oosterlee and hosted by Pete Millichamp at Airbrush and Paint in Great Yarmouth.
I had booked this workshop last year, Nov 2013 and had to wait until May 19th 2014. How excited was I when we finally arrived in May 🙂
Although I was getting to grips with my airbrush, I had lots of questions and lots of areas where I was convince my technique could be better.
As a qualified trainer, I know the value of workshops like these. Sometime even just the one little tip can make it all worthwhile and in this workshop I picked up so much..
Enough waffle – here’s the step by step…
Starting with the outline
Starting to add the darkest areas into the background with burnt umber
Now the lightest areas
OK darks and lights finished
Now starting to blend the areas by adding in the midtones
OK, calling the background finished at this stage
Now to add the darkest features in the face
Next moving on to the ears
Finally adding a little dark texture into the fur
Close up of the ear area
Stating to add the lightest colours to the fur. Still working with opaque colour at this stage
Gradually building up the textures by layering the colours and paying attention to the direction of fur and thinking about the underlying muscle structure
Creating a little more volume with white
Darkening up the fur a little and adjusting the values
Now starting to add colour to the eye, first with a mixed opaque yellow
Using transparent glazes to add depth
Close up of the eye
Closer look at the facial texture
Nearly finished, just needs a little tweaking
Hope you enjoyed the step by step. The image is not quite completed, I will eventually get around to adding the very last details with watercolour pencils and maybe darken a couple of areas in the background.
I need to finish the trike paniers that I’m working on first, so hopefully you will see those finished in the next update.
So I was hooked on airbrushing after being given the chance to create some artwork on my next door neighbour’s trike.
The question was “was I doing it right?”
So off to see what I could find on the internet about airbrushing technique.
My first port of call was Airbrushtutor.com. Mitch is as nutty as a fruit cake, but in the nicest possible way 🙂 He has some great downloadable files on the site to help beginners practice getting used to the control of an airbrush.
I quickly realised that my starter kit had done its job and I ought to move up to the next level of quality, so…
I moved up to a H & S Infinity CR+. The difference was amazing, everything worked for a start and my artwork immediately improved.
Meanwhile back at the trike, Barry (neighbour) asked me to do the artwork on the real fuel tank at the back of the trike.
For all of the work including this next part I have been using Createx water based auto paint.
Take a look at the next gallery to see how the real fuel tank turned out.
My initial sketch for the scene on the fuel tank
Cutting the stencil from Mylar with a stencil burner
Tank prepped and ready to go
Background mountains misted in in white
Closer look at the mountains
Light areas of the fish eagle laid in
Now the yellows
Now the dark details
Close up on the trout
Underpainting almost there
Closer look at the underpainting
Close up on detail
Finished tank
Hope you enjoyed that.
See you soon with the output from My Marissa Oosterlee workshop.
It’s a full time job this, updating software, updating the way this blog looks on a mobile device, updating what I’m up to….
…and I’m not exactly the best at doing my updates on this blog 🙁
I’d rather be painting…..
So for years my first love has been pastels and graphite, but now I’ve found a new love – my airbrush!
I have used a cheapy old airbrush for airbrushing sugar flowers (of all things), but always fancied learning to use one for fine art.
Funny how opportunities arise
It is strange how these things happen, but I’ve always wanted to do some custom work on a bike or car, but never had the bike or the car to do it on. One day just before Christmas I was taking some artwork an exhibition and my neighbour started chatting about his custom trike that he was building. (Not that it matters, but Barry, my neighbour, is 81 and still tinkering around with and riding his trike!)
The upshot of the conversation was that Barry wanted a North American Indian themed bike and I could design and paint the artwork for the faux fuel tank!
Initial wolf image stencilled, starting underpainting
Hint of trees and moonlight
Adding facial detail
Underpainting almost finished
Finished underpainting
Adding detail
Close up detail
Mountains and trees on the other side of tank
Stencil for the Native American Indian
Starting the underpainting
Starting detail
More detail
Almost there…
Finished and clear coated
A closer look
Finished Eagle
Finished and clear coated eagle
Clear coated Indian
Clear coated wolf
Both of us were very happy with this first adventure into custom bike artwork. Barry was so please that he asked me to paint the real fuel tank that sits on the back of the trike. In the meantime I had booked my Marissa Oosterlee airbrush course to learn how to use my airbrush properly…!