"SAFARI" is now my second collection that I´ve been painting. While I was finishing my last paintings from my previous collection ("The Birds") I already knew, that my next collection is going to be named "Safari". I´ve already had some ideas in my mind, about animals I wanna paint.
Of course - they needed to be super colorful again ( I just LOOOOOVE colors sooooo much ). I wanted to keep the style though - kinda graphic / pop - art / realistic.
The first SAFARI painting was a tough one for me -
"I speak Mandarine". I´ve been painting it over 3 times, cuz I just wasn´t happy with it. After the second time of painting it over, I decided to put it on hold and continue with another picture. Sometimes it´s good to back away from something, pause for awhile and get back to it with fresh energy. That´s what I did. I´ve been painting 8 more pictures before I got back to it and eventually finished it.
My second picture was an easy one - "High Life". I really enjoyed painting it. I was sure about the colors I would use and everything else. It only took me 5 days to finish it. Easy peasy.
Making of "High Life"
It always looks more like a colorful mess
than anything else in that stadium,
but wait until I use the black paint...
It´s like drawing the face and makes
a major difference!
My third painting was "Love of their lifes" - the love couple of my collection. It´s one of the bigger ones (60x80cm) and took me quite long, because I´ve been so busy doing shootings ( you remember: I am actually a hair / makeup artist ). I think it took me 2 weeks for this painting. Bigger paintings need more time.
That´s why I never paint 2 big paintings in a row, because it always feels like a little "success" when I finish a painting. And painting a smaller one after a bigger one is kind of motivating to me.
So I painted "Hipp Hipp Hooray". Love the background color! I remember I just bought it and was curious about using it, and since I wanted my hippo to be purple-ish I thought it needed a good contrast to the purple. I didn´t want to use "normal" yellow. That would have been too boring. So I used this lime / pistachio kind of tone and I am still super happy with that decision.
Making of "Hipp Hipp Hooray".
I always paint the background first.
Usually I paint a second layer at the very
end, but the pistachio color did a pretty
good job with only one layer - no need for
a second one.
"No stars but stripes" was my next painting and has been the only painting I´ve been using so much black ( because all of the stripes). The stripes have deifnitely been pretty time consuming, because I had to be super accurate.
Not breathing while drawing / painting a clean line is definitely a good advice I can give, same as not drinking any coffein, because that makes my hand all shaky. I´ve been using a black pencil for some of the outlines of the black stripes to make them real sharp. It took me about one week for this painting. Average amount of time I need for most of my paintings ( if I am not super busy with makeup jobs)....
With the next painting ( "León" ) I´ve been changing my painting routine quite a bit. Before, I´ve been painting straight ahead and been choosing the colors I wanna use more randomly, without really making a plan. It happened already a few times, that I changed my mind about a color and had to paint over it. In order to safe some time and avoid situations like that, I am now making a quick drawing with colored pencils to see, whether the color combos work or not. And it really helps.
My weird sketch for my "León" painting.
It´s only a first design and I think I am
the only one who doesn´t get confused
by it. I do also name the colors of the
different sections.
If you wanna know more about my
painting routine, check out
Purple, orange and pistachio ...
... have been the background colors I´ve been using so far for my SAFARI collection. But I was missing my beloved minty-turquoise, that I´ve been using alot for my previous collection "THE BIRDS".
So I felt like I needed to paint at least one minty-turquoise picture. And I did: "El Rhino" was the one.
Because I enjoyed painting the giraffe ( "High Life" ) so much, I decided to paint another one ( "Gigi had it" ) . Similar like I did with the 4 budgies ( "Four is better than one" ) from my last collection. But this time I wanted to limit it down to two giraffes. And I already knew which colors I wanted to use: beige - pink - rose´- red. I was burning for using this color combo. I´ve once seen a shoe ad ( or whatever it was supposed to be ) showing a pink shoe on beige background and I totally fell in love - with the color combo - not the shoe.
The very last SAFARI painting has been actually a
commission piece - "Easy Tiger".
I didn´t have a deadline, which was good. It was for
a male client and he pretty much gave me free hand
in how it should look. He only sent me a picture of
a tiger print he already owned (it was actually a photo
of a tiger) and wanted me to paint it in my style.
I´ve tried to choose less girly colors, so less pink and
purple but more "neutral" colors ( haha, yes, neon yellow and green are "neutral" for me ). I think it turned out really
good. I like the "Easy Tiger" alot.
It took me about half a year ....
...to finish my SAFARI collection. Sounds quite long, eh? But I do only paint, when I really feel like painting. Otherwise I couldn´t create my so-called "happy pictures". The wouldn´t be as happy if I was constantly forcing myself to paint.
Lets see how long my next collection is gonna take. I am not sure about the name of it yet, but I already know what I am going to paint. Guess what - it´s gonna be colorful again!
Stay tuned!
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