Vladimir went to Kenya a few years ago and took many beautiful pictures. I came across this one last December, as he had included it in a book he had made as a Christmas gift for Adrien and we received it here.
It looked both so graphically appealing and simple that I wanted to try me hand on it. I sketched it and prepared a round shape in masking tape:
Using burnt sienna, yellow ochre and lamp black, I painted the golden sky, the ground and vegetation and the thin clouds:
For the antelopes and to darken further the ground and vegetation, I added black to my palette (apparently I botched the thicket on the left in the process, and had to turn it into a mound):
I removed the tape. Here is the resulting painting that occupies some of the 21×13 cm page of a Moleskin watercolor book:
I learned that the paper of this book isn’t thick enough for too much paint/water, and that it was too ambitious to render the light on the ground and around the animal immediately under the sun. At least, it’s still graphically appealing!
koalie’s contemplations in markup 