Just a Sketch

At a recent AVA meeting the subject was Xmas cards - possibly my least favourite topic. I must admit I stretched the subject as wide as possible by presenting my effort as representing a design for a card (!) It is a small sketch and I repeated the recent Robin painting, although slightly differently as the colours used were not identical, principally as I forgot to bring the Translucent Orange from Schminke, rapidly becoming a favourite colour. This was done on a small Fontenay block that I discovered amongst my paper stocks.

12" X 9" Fontenay

I first made a drawing of the robin and then painted it using Cadmium Orange and Cadmium Red Pale plus some Quinacridone Gold for the red breast. The blue is Cerulean and the other colours Raw Sienna and Raw Umber. The eyes and bill include Ivory Black.

When  all was dry I added impressions of holly leaves drawing with the brush. I mixed up the colours using Sap Green, Green Gold and Hookers for the greens, adding Cobalt Teal Blue and  Perylene Maroon, letting them mix on the paper.

Brushes were the Isabey and Escoda retractables, mostly in the 4 to 6 range of sizes. Just a sketch, nothing more which took about forty minutes excluding breaks.

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