Contest Entry: Fox & Rabbit Watercolor


Fox & Rabbit Watercolor on Black

Spoonflower Presents 
The Pointillism Design Challenge

We think this week’s theme is spot on! Also referred to as dot art, pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. Use your favorite medium to create a repeating pointillistic design that will fool the eye.

A closer look at the finished design.
My entry this week is Fox & Rabbit Watercolor. The pointillism style being the only requirement allowed for a lot of freedom, and I decided to go with an adorable scene with a fox. The sweet little bunny has a black and white spotted pattern to fit in with the theme, and the flowers just complete the look of the whole piece.

I also took a few photos as I was going through the sketching and painting process. So I thought I would share!


I started with a sketch. This one is before I sorted out where all the spots and patches of black would be on the rabbit.


There aren't any pics during the layering because honestly it looked like a mess until the final layers went on. I don't think I have done any serious projects in this style before, and it was a bit nerve wrecking putting all these weird colors together. I had purples and reds, yellow, oranges, with a bit of brown and black. The very last layer that I did was using a black 1mm pen because I didn't want to use too much black watercolor.


Then I got down to drawing out the flowers. I had to put a couple of leaves strategically over drips of black.


There is a photo of the watercolor part of the flowers. The next shot shows the finished painting with the final layer of black penwork over the peonies. 



The camera really can capture the colors quite as good as it looks in real life. You can probably tell from the difference just from photo to photo in this series. So the final digital work required a lot of color editing. I think I made the floral a bit bigger proportionally to the two animals, and then the whole thing was put on a black background to really make the colors pop. There is a white backgrounded version HERE if you would like to see that.

Overall I am delighted in how this turned out. I hope you enjoyed seeing this take shape and definitely go check it out at Spoonflower. I am planning on making this available to buy in the next month or two. 

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