Hidden Gems

Sharing another quick and simple but kawaii piece I painted over a week ago. Once again taking a little break from the chaotic but expressive mixed media paintings and doing something simple. And once again reintroducing my cute little animals, still safe and sound and well looked after. We need to protect them too against this awful Corona outbreak!

And so I began randomly scribbling on my sketchbook some cute little animals like kitties, bunnies, bears and doggies. Sennelier’s oil pastel in yellow was used here, after which I will be painting over with something water-based. Whilst many artists would advise against this because “oil and water don’t mix” unless oil-based on top of water-based, some of us beg to differ. I got inspired by Tracy Verdugo (whose Paint Mojo workshop I had attended earlier this year) and actually am fascinated at the water-resistant effect these oil pastels.

So which water-based medium did I use? I considered watercolors of course but another medium I haven’t used for some time is my Ecoline inks! Also water-based these inks are dye-based, giving a transparent appearance whilst colours remain strong and vibrant. One of the reasons I don’t use them much nowadays is because they smear and “move” by dissolving if you add layers on top. Furthermore they are, as discovered, not lightfast which is not very handy if you want to preserve your painting or even display it. That said, I love the vibrant and transparent finish so they are fine for having fun with. Pitfalls aside, I began painting some of my cute animals in “pastel shades” of blue, pink, green and orange.

It was a fun experiment to observe how a water-resistant medium like oil pastels would react with something water-based. I have already used this method in previous paintings. While not so visisble in this photograph, I think it looks cool and something I could use more often. Other ways could be using a darker-coloured pastel over a lighter colour, or colours that are opposite of each other or even, as we had done at the Paint Mojo workshop, a simple wax candle! And however it all turned out, I’m well pleased how cute this piece turned out with the pretty colours and kawaii animal shapes!