Painting an Old Friend
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that I’ve been focusing on painting toys and other objects I remember fondly from growing up in the ‘90s. It was always going to be a very personal project, but it’s hard to get more personal than your own cuddly toys. I mean, not only did they share our bedrooms (and sometimes, our beds), but they shared our happy times, our sad times and kept all our secrets.
It was hard choosing just one of my cuddly toys to paint, but Bumblelion has always been rather distinctive-looking, with his half-lion, half-bee chunkiness. It also dawned on me how little I knew about who he actually was (apart from my furry friend of course), so I did a bit o’ digging. I say ‘digging’ but let’s be honest, a quick online search did the job!
I discovered that Bumblelion was a character in a 1985 Disney animated TV series called The Wuzzles. It only ran for 13 episodes and was one of the shortest-running animated series Disney ever produced. I checked out the first episode on YouTube .. .and I can kinda see why. Bumblelion in his animated form, is actually pretty annoying n’ he sounds nothing like the Bumblelion I had in my head. So I’ll stick with my Bumblelion.
I thought I’d try and visualise the process of this painting, which was easier said than done. Any artist will know that when you’re working you can quickly get into a ‘zone’ or flow-like state. This is when your focus is so intense that anything outside of your work becomes a haze. In those circumstances, it goes against your instinct to stop, which is exactly what I had to keep reminding myself to do so that I could take periodic scans after each layer of watercolour. With the best will, I didn't keep tabs as well as I would have liked. So I can’t tell you exactly how long this painting took me. At a guess, and discounting the stopping and starting, it was probably around 4 hours (I tell you, I’m not a fast worker).
I hope by visually showing you how my painting progressed that you get a sense of how I went about it. It’s hard to describe what you do as a painter…..you just kinda do it. But I’ll have a go at explaining it.
You’ll probably notice I start with a very pale wash, this forms the base coat and gives me something to build on. I’ll keep light areas..well…light and go slightly heavier on the areas that are in shadow. You can see this on Bumblelion’s nose, and how the right (your right that is) of his body is very slightly darker due to the light coming in from the opposite side.
Once that’s dry, I start to apply the mid-tones and a little texture. For some reason it’s usually around this time that I start to panic and worry the panting isn’t working out (just general lack of confidence and fear that I’m wasting my time….how bad is that!?), but if I push through, I can usually overcome that and the painting starts to make sense.
Then I apply the darker layers on top of that. This is probably my favourite stage of painting just ‘cos I really love focusing in on the itty bitty details. I always end up using the smallest of my brushes the darker my paint gets. This is because the very darkest bits in my paintings are often the most intricate.
There’s actually no difference (painting-wise) between numbers 5 and 6. Number 5 is a scan of the final painting, but the process of scanning often results in washed-out colours and faded tone. It can give the painting a ‘washed-out’ appearance that just isn’t there in the real thing. I import the scan to my MacBook and using very basic editing tools (built into my MacBook) I bring-up the tone a little and up the vibrancy of the colours a tad until they more closely match those of the original painting. I think I’ve gone a bit too vibrant on this one on reflection. But editing my paintings is another world entirely and I’m still learning how to use these technologies to benefit my work.