Fun Fair

How sweet. Weather has been fine the past weeks although too warm on some days. On less sticky days Little One likes to take a walk and enjoy some fresh air and pretty flowers. She noticed, one day, a little fun fair at the local park so decided to check it out. All these interesting creatures roaming around. And that blueberry-flavored cotton candy looks so delicious!

Gold Rush

The painting and related story were inspired by some gold paint. It’s actually a leftover from another painting, some gold acrylic paint I rolled with a brayer on a blank page from my sketchbook. Some areas somewhat ended up having more paint than others which makes it all the more interesting. Then I also made some bubble wrap imprints, as there was still some paint left though not enough to roll on another stroke.

Start Adding

From the patterns I detected some animal-like creatures. It was purely by chance that both these areas with more gold paint had their own four “legs”! I also wanted to involve Little One in the picture which would add to the cuteness. With some oil pastels, I made an outline of her and sketched some details on the grassy bit. And around the bubble wrap imprint was to be some flower, but I decided later they would look more like cotton candy. Once the rough sketching was done, I proceeded in coloring the background with some Ecoline ink; yellow on top and green on the bottom.

Colouring Away

I wanted to go light-handed and create a transparent effect with the colours so as not to dominate the gold. As such I opted for water-soluble mediums like Neocolor II oil pastels and Faber Castell’s Gelatos. Neocolor II was used for the face and hair and the Gelatos for brighter bits like the pink dress and flower as well as the blueberry cotton candy. As I wanted a stronger shade for the eyes, I went for Dr Ph Martins Hydrus liquid watercolor. Then India ink (Dr Ph Martins Bombay Ink) for the lashes and details on the collar (pink) and cotton candy (blue) drawn with a bamboo nib.

Little Creatures

I finalised the piece by drawing in the eyes of the little creatures using India ink. Interestingly, I then just discovered another small area with the gold paint and decided it could be a butterfly! Added details there as well. Then using white acrylic pen, I circled in the whites of the eyes for the Little One. Glad to see how well the whites stand out, since I wanted her eyes to be fairly the focus of attention too. And look how cute she looks having so much fun at the park!

Amazing what you can produce by using scraps and leftovers. Here I used gold paint and transformed that into a cute painting! Something kawaii. And using whatever medium I could find to suit the purpose. I’m very pleased with the outcome and will be producing more like this!