World water color month day 8 Flying things.

For day 8 Flying things, I decided to do fireflies and a dragonfly. I decided to do 2 projects because I could have one project drying while I worked on the other one. One of the hardest thing about watercoloring is waiting for it to dry so the colors don't become muddy.

I sketched a jar to hold my fireflies.

I did a wet on wet color  wash to color the background.

I masked the jar and added splatters of paint to the background.

I added color to the inside of the jar and added yellow glows.

I painted the lid with 2 shades of gray and added silver metallic rub to add sparkle.

I added red and black to the dragonflies and brown to the table that the jar is sitting on.

Here is the finished firefly painting.

I sketched a dragonfly.

I did a wet on wet color wash, masked the dragonfly and added splatters.

I painted the body blue and added random dots of color to the wings.

I kept adding dots of color to the wings until I had filled up the wings.

I could have left this painting just like this. I liked how it looked but I wasn't completely satisfied. 

 I added water to the background to lighten it a bit so that there would be more contrast with the dragonfly. I took a blue, green and gray colored pencil to add some more details. I used the blue to outline and define the scales. 

 To finish it off I added some black ink to the legs and eyes I also stamped the waves from 

STAMPlorations Anchored 

to show flight.

My second finished project.