Caroline sketched an outline of squirrel.
She mixed the water colours ready for use ranging from raw sienna, ultra marine, red, yellow ochre, green pthalo, and mixed to form lights and darks of purples and grey.
She squinted to emphasise the dark areas, and noting any specific interest. Caroline started with the head. A twig or a drawing pen can be used.
Using dark colours then pulling down with the brush to move the paint to a lighter tone, she blended the areas together, made sure the light around the eye was kept and the dark above emphasised. Keep the brush light using water to give a light wash, wiggling the colours together, flick and scratch to give looseness and texture.
Because the colours are mixed in the beginning you can granulate the paint down the squirrel so the colours bleed into each other giving a soft but striking work.
Water colour dries lighter so to keep the tonal values it will be necessary to go over the dark areas again.
The tail was a wash then colour dropped in,
Caroline made the black with red blue and green, keep working whilst wet, splatter and scrape again for texture.
When the head was dry, Caroline filled in the eye leaving a slight white slit. She did use some true black for this. She emphasised the eye socket. Be bold with the dark but keep the light areas light.
Go back to the tail repeat the dark areas but blend with water. She used a hint of red which she then added to the eye area as a reflection, splatter, scratch and flick.
Any background needs to be muted as it would spoil the impact of the colours in the squirrel.
