Print - The Shelter of Leaves

The Shelter of Leaves

I was so out of my comfort-zone painting this! The Shelter of Leaves was one of the very first paintings where I gave up using black outlines that had previously made the coloring easier for me. In addition to that, the original painting is huge and in several cases I needed to be very fast with my brush to get the color to have the desired effect on a large area of paper. I still remember how I was literally sweating, my hands trembling because I was so afraid I’d ruin the whole painting. I had never really painted anything like this before: with all my earlier artworks I had always felt relatively safe with my usual way of painting smaller areas with more details. Now I had to abandon the details and use a big brush to make wide brushstrokes fast. I was convinced painting this way would make a mess and I’d have to start all over again. To my surprise, this didn’t happen and so I started to learn that even when done hurriedly, watercolor can produce great result. Stepping out of my comfort zone like this has greatly increased my trust in watercolors and my own skills.

Keywords: print, leopard, big cats, leaves, tree