ink painting

Watercolour Painting on Wood – Blue and Yellow Cat

ink painting, pet portrait, watercolor, watercolour / / / , , ,

If this painting looks a little familiar, it’s because it’s my third attempt at using a limited palette to paint my kitty, Sparc! Last year, I painted my senior cat, Scuzzy, using just pink and yellow; and I’ve been struggling to create a matching piece for Sparc focusing around blue. I’m not sure why it took me so long to figure out that I needed to use cyan and cool yellow, since that’s the opposite end of the triad… But we got there in the end!

The one thing I really hate about painting on wood is how poorly it scans. There’s a luminous quality to all watercolours in person, but on wood, it’s cranked up to really enhance the vibrancy. Despite that, the painting process is just sooooo fun, I can’t imagine giving it up haha.

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New Painting Process: Rainbow Tabby on Black

ink painting, pet portrait, watercolor, watercolour / / / , , , ,

Here’s my latest experimental piece. To no one’s surprise, it’s a cat!

I really enjoy the contrast between colour and pure black, but I’ve never found a way to introduce black into my rainbow pieces without dulling the colours. I think black backgrounds like this might be the solution?? It’s definitely something I’ll be experimenting more with in the near future.

This piece was also my first painting with acrylic inks! I love using India inks, but the lacquer in them dries on the palette and can create crumbs in the finished painting. Acrylic inks dry in more of a film that doesn’t tend to crumble into the wet ink, so it was very pleasant to work with. Bonus points for maintaining the transparency and vibrancy of my other inks and watercolours!

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New Experimental Piece – Little Fox in Acrylic Ink

ink painting, watercolor, watercolour, wildlife art / / / , , , ,

Please enjoy this little fox being very little and cute.

This is my first little experimental piece using acrylic inks. All of my ink pieces before this have been done with India ink, but it tends to create crumbs as it dries in the palette. So far, the acrylic ink seems to dry less crumbly, so I’m very pleased!

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Rainbow Sulcata Tortoise Portrait

ink painting, pet portrait, watercolor, watercolour, wildlife art / / / , , , ,

After painting so many fluffy animals recently, I had the urge to paint a tortoise. This is a sulcata tortoise, one of the most charismatic tortoises you can meet imo.

I had a ton of fun painting the scales on this cutie. Sulcata’s have quite thick spur-like scales down their legs that create beautiful, dramatic shadows. I’m still working on balancing the more subtle scales on the face, but painting each leg scale individually felt right for this guy.

One of my biggest frustrations with painting on wood is how poorly it scans. The yellows and oranges have so much more depth in person that gets lost in the wood when scanned or photographed. But even so, I’m pretty happy with this piece! I’d love to paint more tortoises in the future. Do you have a favourite tortoise or turtle species?

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Sparc in Purple and Green

ink painting, pet portrait / / / , , ,

It’s time for a portrait of my kitten, Sparc! It’s hard getting a photo of him where he doesn’t look absolutely ridiculous, because he is a very ridiculous cat.

I created this as a companion piece to Scuzzy in Pink and Yellow and wanted to try a new colour palette. It was fun using the cooler tones, and this is definitely a colour scheme I need to play with more in the future.

Support my work here:

Etsy

Skillshare

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Scuzzy in Pink and Yellow

ink painting, pet portrait, watercolor, watercolour / / / , , ,

It’s been a while since I’ve painted my beautiful, sassy boy, Scuzzy cat. Here he is in my favourite colour scheme! Warm colours feel extra bright against natural wood, and this piece really glows in person.

I’m still experimenting with backgrounds and trying to figure out what I like. These little splashes were a lot of fun! I like how they’re more controlled than splatters and more saturated than a faded wet-in-wet wash.

Support my work here:

Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/squidtartsart

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SquidTartsArt

Etsy: https://squidtartsart.etsy.com

Learn to paint like this through my Skillshare classes: https://www.skillshare.com/en/user/squidtarts

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July Exclusive JUMBO Sticker – Mourning Gecko

ink painting, stickers, watercolor, watercolour, wildlife art / / / , , , , ,

Another month means another exclusive JUMBO sticker! This month we have the most charming reptile escape artist, the mourning gecko!

Mourning geckos are really cool, because not only are they one of the few social species of lizards that actually do best when housed in groups, but they’re parthenogenic! That means they can reproduce without males. (Which is really good, because males are almost non-existent in this species.) These little ladies are also really good at regrowing their tails, and they don’t end up with post-shed nubs like most species.

The exclusive 3.5” jumbo sticker is available only for the month of July through my Patreon and Ko-fi pages, or you can purchase it directly on Etsy!

Etsy: https://squidtartsart.etsy.com/ca/listing/1741380946/july-exclusive-jumbo-rainbow-mourning

Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/squidtartsart

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SquidTartsArt

Normal 2.5” mourning geckos stickers are available on my website and through Etsy.

Website: https://rainbowpetportraits.ca/product/rainbow-mourning-gecko-vinyl-sticker/

Etsy: https://squidtartsart.etsy.com/ca/listing/1755574345/rainbow-mourning-gecko-vinyl-stickers

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August Sticker Pack

ink painting, stickers, wildlife art / / / , ,

Here’s our sticker pack for August as voted by my patrons on Patreon! These little bears were a real challenge to draw. There’s a lot of overlap in their body types, but some surprising differences! I somehow never noticed the moon bear has such a puffy head.

From top left going clockwise, we have the: grizzly bear, moon bear, polar bear, black bear, and giant panda.

Please remember to sign up for the Orange Cat, Blue Bird, or Yellow Frog tiers over on Patreon any time this month to get some of exclusive goodies, or adopt these guys at their 2.5″, non-shiny selves on my store.

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