If you are here for the BD Comics Manga Storypad paper giveaway, (it's great for drawing, tracing and transferring as well as Manga!), you can find it
here. Ends tonight!
You are probably familiar with the work of Eyvind Earle, even if you don't recognize his name. He painted the backgrounds for several Disney films including 'Sleeping Beauty', 'Peter Pan' and 'Lady and the Tramp'.
He painted in oil, thus was able to paint light over dark. That doesn't work with watercolor. His simple sweeps of color are hard for me - I like to fuss. So I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to handle either of those things. I also wanted to keep some of my own style. Ah well. Thinking things out is not my forte. I do much better by just doing, making my mistakes and learning from them.
So here's my first attempt. I used three different techniques for the little flowery patterns in the trees so I could compare. I used masking fluid, lifting paint, and using a white acrylic marker after the paint dried.
The acrylic marker came closest, but I'll need to buy more colors if I'm going to continue with that method. I like the way the masking fluid allows the color underneath to show, but I need to figure out how to get much smaller petals. Lifting didn't work well at all. That didn't surprise me - but it might work if I want a foggy look around the bottom of the trees.
I couldn't decide how I wanted to handle the shadows in the meadow and just ended up over-working the paint. It's a process though, and I'm happy enough with the piece because I learned quite a bit.
This style goes well with my fantasy landscape theme, and I got the idea for some step-outs, too.
