Hedgehog painting. (The Animal Kingdom)

Hedgehog, Acrylic, ballpoint ink on hardwood panel. 19,69" x 19,69" /50 x 50 cm.
This is a painting I made for The Animal Kingdom Groupshow at Gallery Nucleus.
It's available here:
http://www.gallerynucleus.com/gallery/pieces/308

I wanted to paint the hedgehog because this animal looks so cute, but if you want to touch it, it would probably hurt you. I love this natural contradiction. Since I am collecting albino images (because they are so rare) I wanted to paint him white. And at the moment it's very cold in the Netherlands, so naturally I'm attracted to the cozy pose of this little animal surrounded by leaves as if he's having a wintersleep.

 Close-up.

 Often times I get inspired by pictures. Like, I can see nice colourcombinations or in this case I saw some bokeh, (the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light) and it looked like snowflakes. Since it's snowing in the Netherlands I added this to the painting.

 I was very happy when I 'discovered' that I could use ballpoint ink on the wood and paint over it with acrylic paint to reduce the reddish  ink glow it gives. Ballpoint is so sharp and fine that it gives a nice contrast with the acrylic paint.

Because acrylic paint dries fast I can easily build the painting with transparent layers.

 First layers with acrylic on the wood.

This is the first sketch and to give it some quick colour ideas and make a composition. As you can see I was drawing a sloth at first...

Sometimes a painting takes total new direction as you can see. I've painted a sloth, but my sister gave me some 'spot on' advice. (Like she always does) The sloth wasn't an interesting shape and the leaves suggests he's is having a wintersleep, so it would be better to make a hedgehog. And second: The sloth is an exotic animal who lives in trees. So...Bye bye sloth!

 Reference pictures I took outside (near my old house).

"Dolce" Painting for The Animal Kingdom Groupshow at Gallery Nucleus

 
Acrylic, colourpencil on Arches hotpress watercolour paper.
12,70 x 17,78cm/ 5" x 7", 2013.
This is a little painting for "The Animal Kingdom" groupshow at the Gallery Nucleus in L.A. *Flyer below.

 I love to use different textures in my paintings to give it a little contrast. Acrylic is great for thin layers or thick spots like the ones in the middle.

~ C L I C K    T O   E N L A R G E ~

Swept Away

 Acrylic, ballpoint ink on Arches hotpress watercolour paper.
12,70 x 17,78cm/ 5" x 7", 2013.
This is a little painting for "The Animal Kingdom" groupshow at the Gallery Nucleus in L.A.

This one started as a quite happy sketch, but while I was experimenting with colour combinations it transformed in something more creepy.

 I've made the outlines of the fish with ballpoint ink, which is hard to cover with paint, but you've got this transparent side effect I discovered. 

As a little kid my sister and I developed this 'secret language'. It's something that we only understand and the funny thing is that we still use it sometimes.

It's nice to experiment with the colours because I could not imagine how the how the yellow flakes  turned out on the grey background.

 I started this sketch on my holiday in Dubai on a quite beach. Wish I was there again!

~ C L I C K   T O   E N L A R G E ~