Crafted By Colette

Remember I told you that my friend SamBeAwesome was gonna be doing a paint-a-long? Well, it was a LOT of fun.

I set myself up about a half hour early, ready to do some warm ups.

I did a bunch of little dome shapes – one for each colour in my palette – to warm up, and turned them into monsters.

And then it was time to get started.

Here’s the reference image we were using, and here’s where you can get it if you’re interested.

We began with some quick little sketches to get the basic form sorted.

And then we moved on to sketching out our bird on the watercolour paper.

Here’s mine.

Once we’d erased the excess graphite it was time to get painting.

Sam was a really good teacher. She took every step slowly and gave as much detail as she could. It was a joy to follow her.

I started off trying to follow as precisely as I could, and ended up doing my own thing. But I was definitely learning and having fun.

Normally when I paint I use the medium as a colouring tool. I do a drawing, outline it, and colour in the shapes. I’m not so good at this actual painting technique. But I’m super happy with how my little bird turned out.

I actually ended up with two birds. Early on in the paint-a-long Sam mentioned the colours she was using, but that we could any colours we like. She said we could do any type of bird. Because I’m me, I asked if I could do a rainbow unicorn bird.

So I did.

I’m not overly happy with the splatter on the galaxy in the bowl. I can’t splatter. At all. One day I’ll spend an hour or two just practicing splatter. I’m sure I’ll tell you all about it if I do.