I made a new painting of Tuli (that’s their name now). I’ve always got lots of ideas for new paintings with them, but I easily get too occupied with my personal projects, and postpone other important stuff I have to do. So I have to hold myself back from manifesting every single idea that pops into my head. This one wasn’t really supposed to happen.

I just made a tiny sketch of a nice photo I saw, added Tuli, and then I couldn’t restrain myself from making a big version.
As if I haven’t got better things to do…

So, I made a bigger sketch out of the small one, traced it onto the watercolour paper, and went straight to painting.

The only thing I had in mind was to make it really colourful, and I decided on pink and green without much thought behind it. Probably should’ve given it more, because I’m not very happy with the outcome at all.There are some nice things about it, but the two things that were the most important- the dandelions and the colours- didn’t work. I think this fails to show the things I was most interested in. The dandelions should look light and transparent, but they are thick and heavy. The colours seems to be fighting each other and I don’t even know where the light is or where it’s coming from.
I might as well try again.

It was a fun challenge, so even if the next one didn’t turn out completely great either, it was a good learning opportunity.
Luckily, right at this time the dandelions had just sprung out in their poofy form around here, so I spent all the dog-walks observing them.
These two tests didn’t help me much. I thought that I should try finding a good technique for showing the lightness and transparency, but I didn’t discover a good one. I figured I’d just go with how I did it the first time, but leaving less white on the paper and paying more attention to the details.

I let go of the pink and switched it out for yellow. Discarded the whole background to give myself an easier time with the lighting. Used a white gel-pen to make extra seeds and highlights.

This was the result:

I like this one a lot more.
I became so focused on the dandelions that I neglected Tuli a bit. I’m afraid that the silhouette don’t read well enough. But I think that once you know t’s there, it’s quite obvious what/who it is, right?
I want to say that I might give it another try sometime, but I probably won’t. I’ve got other projects to focus on now, and once that focus shifts, it doesn’t go back.