The next in my British wildlife series is this Hedgehog. This is a piece, like the sunset painting, that I have designed myself from various references. I used my photo editing software to create a layout and see what I liked best. When I had planned to draw a Hedgehog my first imagination was it peeping out of its home.
Not only have I used various references and made this painting to be entirely unique I then used the various tools in the software to add shadows, create more depth and add things to make it more how I invisioned.
For this first stage I airbrushed a base colour on the canvas first. This was because I wanted to sketch my outline down first to make sure I didn’t loose the objects in the background. I then used my airbrush and filled in my darks, lights and then midtones. Let that dry and rework, adding layers. Again, this does not follow my reference. So although I have used many references for this piece I still have then not followed the references exact.
This is the most detailed background apart from a blue bell wood pet portrait I did a couple of years ago. I wanted to apply the base layers with the airbrush. This background is going to be different to the Hare and Sunset piece in that there will be more detail in most of this background. There will still be a depth of field effect to keep your eye in the middle and make the Hedgehog stand out even more.
The next part for this piece is to work on the Hedgehog before I add anymore to the background and foreground. This is because with the Hedgehog finished I will then be able to better judge how much detail the background needs.
I’m very excited to work on this painting 😀
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