Here’s the final step discussing the process of “Wanderlust". Hope some of you find this useful and interesting. Thanks for the feedback and support!
Inspired by recent sunsets, I began crushing some orange, pink and purple pastels and mixing them with iridescent media and painting in the background colours around the bottom third of the sky.
After watching a flock of cockatoos flying at sunrise near my studio, I added tons more owls in the background, drawing them with coloured pencil, pastel and iridescent white. I had to keep them desaturated and tonally close to the background so they didn’t interfere with the foreground.
I filled out the leaf silhouette more, imagining them weaving around musically and outlined them in red/orange pencil to give them more glow and define the unique shape more.
Then I wasn’t happy with the unity and strength of the picture, so I layered all the foreground with GAC100 and water, and some acrylic to unify it. Then I glazed some areas in oil paint to give it more depth, particularly in the darkest areas like the ground, leaves, vines and below the foot etc.
I used iridescent white oil paint, liquin and crushed pastels to brighten the chroma of the glowing areas, particularly on the owl faces. The shiny, reflective qualities of the media is useful for the mimicking surfaces of leaves.
I left the background without the GAC and oil glaze, so that it would appear lighter, dry and more airy, with the materials closer to the surface.
Thanks for reading!