Polar bears

Here in the UK we are experiencing a cold snap, which has turned into a cold blast. Heating is on in our house, morning and evening ( finally persuaded hubby it was necessary ) and my woodburner is blazing in my studio. My heart goes out to those suffering because their heat isn't working or they can't afford to turn it on. Or perhaps don't even have a home... 

Here in our Devon village, it looked so pretty , like a Christmas card...

but if your cold I expect you wish it all a long way away. We decided to walk to the post office on Saturday morning, orders have most definitely slowed down due to the strikes, but I had a few things for people and I thought it best to get them on their way as quickly as I could.

Then Sunday we planned to drive to Warwick to collect our son , after his first term at Uni....not a journey I would like to repeat in a hurry, snow, icy roads, stuck in traffic on the M5 for hours and our lad, overslept , when we arrived....far from ready to go. The perils of being a parent ...

So he is safely home, we are warm and Christmas is around the corner.

With all this cold I thought it might be time to tackle these 2 polar bears again, and talk you though the process

First I drew them.

Then I began on their features, A weak yellow ochre for the fur, and a paynes grey nose and a tiny eye.

Keep everything very wet, I used the weak yellow ochre, then dropped in shadow colours of cadmium red mixed with cobalt blue, to add the shapes in the fur.

Then repeat on bear 2

Now the ground they are standing on, I used a lot of water and dropped in some indigo, while it was wet but not too wet I sprinkled on some salt.

Now the dark arctic sky, lots of indigo, and then salt, 

Next step was to introduce some cling film and a moon by wetting an area and removing the colour with a piece of kitchen roll.

 

Now walk away and let everything dry before , adding a few finishing touches.

 

Stay warm everyone x