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Whale

More watercolour wonderment and an introduction to the power of layering paint. We also use chalk, but not as you know it…

Final Piece

Materials

  • Watercolours
  • Small & medium brushes
  • Coloured pencils (optional)
  • White chalk

Instruction Video

Instructions

  1. First of all, transfer the Whale onto your page (Do this by turning the page over and positioning the back to frontwhale on your page. Holding firmly and being careful that the paper doesn’t move at all, scribble firmly over the back using the side of your pencil (it needs to look really black, not gentle and pale) the whale image will appear on your page J).
  2. Start to paint the the sea a dark green/blue colour, using lots of strong pigment and your larger brush. Use Use the tip of your brush for the little pointy waves.
  3. Turn the paper around to paint the flying fish (to avoid the wet paint). Use your smaller brush (in any colour you like) paintings the bodies first and then the wings.
  4. Paint Whale’s upper blue section. Do this by first makIng this area really wet with some bluey grey water. Then dropping intense blobs of blue pigment onto the wet surface, let the watercolour work its magic, the more intense and waterier the better. You might like to add more water as dots or take excess water away with the corner of a tissue.
  5. Using a darker colour than the sea (you may need to add a bit of black to a green/blue) paint in some wavy seaweed, painting first a row of thick ones using your larger brush, then a row of thin ones using your small brush.
  6. Paint in some very pale grey lines on the whale’s white under-belly.
  7. Add some brightly coloured tiny fish, swimming in a shoal as shown below. Use your smaller brush and lots of orange pigment.
  8. If you want to, you may like to add some darker colour to the whale, using the same technique as before.
  9. For the sky, rub some blue chalk on some spare paper. Rub your fingertip in the dust and start to add little ‘puffs’ of pale blue, like gaps in the clouds on a hazy day.
  10. Next, using a white pencil, add highlights to the seaweed, flying fish and tiny fish. Draw in the base of the spout of water too, just before it hits the water’s top.
  11. Using a pale blue pencil, draw in the spout of water coming out of the whale.
  12. Paint in the water splashes, mouth and eye using your small brush.
  13. Once you are sure everything is dry, add some shafts of light using a white chalk or pastel, working in the rays with your finger and adding more where needed.

Reference / Transfer Material