Title and Medium
"Flutterby at Rest". 9.5x12" Acrylic on watercolor paper glued on cardboard.
Artist's Statement
I live in Mexico. A butterfly flew into my kitchen and landed inside a window screen. I took a closeup with a bit of curtain curving in. I think the overlapping wings are an unusual angle.
I blew up the image on the computer and got broken color so I thought I'd paint it like that. I tilted the butterfly a bit.
I used analogous and complementary colors and really watched out for tonal values. I liked mixing the tones but keeping the hues balanced in their tonal range took some organizing.
Since I've been following your site I've been doing tonal studies and limited palette exercises and learned a lot. This is my first submission.
What I'd Do Differently
- I wanted to capture the translucency of the subject and I think I did.
- I like the colors.
- I think some of the colors could have been better placed.
- Need to work on the brush strokes.
Marion Boddy-Evans, Painting Guide, says:
I'd agree, you've beautifully captured the translucency of the butterfly's colors. I would try breaking up the solid straight lines on the wings into dotted lines (with dots very close together). So that from a distance they blend together into a line, but close up they're not.
For examples of this, take a look at the paintings by Seurat. In some of his paintings, the uniformity of his size of tiny dots of paint is astounding. Also look at the later works of Cezanne for his brushwork, where he used direction and size of brushmark as part of the way he built up his image.
