Hello my followers, firstly thank you for making the step to follow this blog. Up until now I have posted only when I have an image ready and an appropriate story to go with it. However I feel that there is much that I could add to this blog if I expand on it and give it other functions. I have decided to add a “Making of” Category where I can post about my process and possibly some early sketches. It would also be a great platform to interact with those of you who are interested in the artistic process. Please let me know what your thoughts are and if you would like to see more of this sort of post. Thanks for your support of this blog and my work, Lynton.

1.I started Wolfs Clothing by doing rough sketches on loose paper. When I was happy with the size and composition I did a graphite rub on the back of the paper,  laid out the images on the illustration board and transferred the sketches by tracing them with a ball point pen.

2.You can see the the line work faintly on the board. I don’t press too hard as I don’t want to dent the board, but there is enough information transferred there for me to start pencilling the final line work.

3. It takes a while to do the final line work but I find the more detail I add in this phase the easier it is when it comes to painting. It’s much simpler to work out the curve of scales over an object in pencil than it is in paint. I don’t shade in pencil though as that would muddy up my water colours.

A close up. I did very minimal detail on hair as I will suggest all that detail with the paint.Final line work of the wolf. Before I painted him I used a putty eraser or soft eraser to pick up all the excess pencil. The wool had to look white and dark pencil is hard to cover up with light colours.

4.I then started adding the water colour. I use very thin washes and I don’t go too dark too quickly. Things that are further back in space I will leave a little lighter, this helps with the feeling of depth.

The finished water colour image. I went much further with water colour than I had  initially intended, but I was getting good results so I didn’t want to mess it up just because I felt I should switch to acrylics. However there is still plenty of work to do at this point in the painting. To reach the next level of detail I need acrylics.

5.The dragon post acrylic. Here I  added  blue highlights to suggest a sky. I also just tighten up the whole image. The darks are a little darker and I get rid of some of the overkill specular highlights. I take a lot of photo’s while I paint. Not just for documentation but I also see the image better when it is on my tiny camera screen. It really helps me see quickly how my image is reading.

I take the same approach with the wolf and sheep, keeping it very light initially.

6.All three ducks in a row! Here you can see my colour mock ups. I painted them roughly in Photoshop and print them out as a colour guide while I’m painting.

7.I love adding detail and I’m getting happier and happier with what I am able to squeeze out of traditional mediums. Thought you might like to see a proper close up of his face.

Well if you have gone through this thanks for reading. If you like what I do please share with others who you think will like it too!