Leisure Painter - UK (2019 - Summer)

http://www.painters-online.co.uk SUMMER 2019 47

LizChaderton

Liz runs regular workshops

near her home in Berkshire; visit

http://www.lizchaderton.co.uk for details.

In October 2019 she is tutoring an

exciting painting and sketching trip

to Uttarakhand, India with the

chance to see tigers, sloths and

a wealth of spectacular birds

(see http://www.paintingineurope.com

for details).

Step 5

1 I carried on down the neck, using quite a lot of water to enable the

paint to take its own course. I softened edges as before and added a little

salt to the right-hand side. You do need to be careful not to overuse any

texturing trick, otherwise it will become clichéd. You can see that I painted

carefully around the whiskers under the chin, but I could have added

them using white gouache at the end should I have lost them.

2 Once the neck was complete, I returned

to the lovely top lip. I couldn’t do the lips

earlier, as the nostrils were too wet and

the dark would have ruined it.

3 Finally, I painted a very light mixed

wash across the background, capturing

more white hairy edges.

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Step 6

I let the painting dry thoroughly then

erased the pencil lines. Some artists like

them showing as part of their process,

but I prefer to erase them if I can. This

was the time to consider the final details

carefully so I didn’t do too much. I toned

down some of the white areas a little to

make sure the light was coming from the

left. I added more background washes

then when dry, I added a few splatters.

Llamas are very spitty animals, after all!

This is the danger period when it is easy

to go too far so I stopped a little sooner

than I was entirely comfortable with.

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Step 4

Next I worked down the right (as you look at it) side of the face,

keeping it simpler than the left. I wanted the focus to remain on

the eye. I used the handle of my brush to draw out the eyebrows

and the chin whiskers. It was nice to introduce different marks

into the painting. Again I used negative painting along the profile.

Little flashes of white paper really brings the watercolour to life.

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The finished painting Llama Drama,

watercolour, 17^3 ⁄ 4 x 1334 ⁄in (45x35cm)

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