Forest Fairy Watercolourby *AndyIomoon

Traditional Art / Paintings / Fantasy

Some of you may remember my Forest Fairy which was a trivia night prize I donated to my kids' school and the promise that I would add colour to it.... well, it only took just over a year - and here it is!

A brief history

I sketched this up and inked it using micron pens (obviously before I got my taste for nib pens) and scanned it using my old, tired scanning technique. My intention was to colour it digitally because a year ago the thought of colouring it traditional left me queasy in the stomach.

Unfortunately the scan was terrible and I just couldn't come up with a colour palette I liked. So I shelved this one for a long time as you can see.

Recently a few things changed though. One, I rescanned the inks using my new, preferred method, and two, I bought a new A3 printer. This meant I could print out the new, crisp, scanned lines on to a nice sized piece of watercolour paper and go to town with my new watercolours - knowing full well if I messed things up I could just print out another copy of the inks and start again.

And mess up I did. The first time I stretched the paper I did not soak it for long enough so when I came to put my wash down the paper buckled and rolled like a wild thing. The second paper I soaked too long and it tore away from my staples as it was drying. Mercifully, just like in the fairy tale, the third one was juuuuuuust right.

My first step was to put down a warm sepia undercoating to take a bit of the edge of my bright new colours. From there I was on a roll and I finished the painting over the course of a week.

I am not sure the final result is as spectacular as I was hoping but I will put that down to my high expectations and the fact that I still feel like I have the training wheels on when it comes to watercolours.

My first impression of the Peerless Watercolours was very favourable. They were a joy to use and I had no trouble mixing the colours to create my own tints. The sample swatches are not going to last long - perhaps I can squeeze out one or two more similar sized paintings with this current set - but it is a 'sample' pack after all. They might also last longer if I was not so heavy handed. I wish now I had made the background colours much less saturated.

And the good news is I am ready to get started on a new illustration straight away. I have the bug!

~phoenixreign1 Apr 8, 2010 Professional Traditional Artist

i love the colors. its great

*AndyIomoon Apr 8, 2010 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

Thanks very much

~moonlightditty Oct 1, 2009

This is stunning.. I love the colours, and how you have painted such an expanse of landscape, and with the fairy nestled in the corner.It's a beautiful composition. I love it!