Merit Award in Splash 2018

Splash® 2018 - Watercolour New Zealand's Annual Exhibition

The NZ Academy of Fine Arts, 1 Queens Wharf, Wellington

November 16 – December 01, 2018

I have entered paintings in the Splash Art awards for many years. In 2018 I was awarded the Splash Merit Award for the painting below, called"Relaxing", a watercolour on paper. This painting is available for sale or as a printed set of 10 blank cards. Contact me if you are interested, or read more about the watercolour techniques I used below.

A model cat for painting

My model Leonard is a beautiful dark-striped tabby with a big personality, a white tummy and paws. He often sleeps on the top of the couch in this position to have a high vantage point, safely away from the dog.

Materials and techniques to get the fur effect

I used Arches 300gsm rough paper and Daniel Smith watercolours.

I don’t often use black, but in this painting, I used Lunar Black. It is a neutral black that creates an interesting texture which I thought would look like fur. I wet both sides of the paper to make sure that I would have plenty of time to paint the fuzzy black tabby fur stripes.

Most of the background was painted on an almost vertical angle to create the look of the vertical side of a couch. Using layers of Aureolin and then Quinacridone Pink for the couch, mixing it all together wet-in-wet on the paper.

A final wash of Cobalt Blue helped to pull it together and knocked back the bright colour. I mostly used large brushes but I got a small brush out and gouache for the detail of his whiskers and hairy ears.

I love painting animals so my next challenges are our other tabby cat and Dougal the labradoodle.