Squirrel Collection

Hi everyone, if you've been dropping into the infrequent art stream lately - I've been plucking away at a series of squirrels for the winter. It's been on my art to-do list to make a squirrel painting since sometime last year, and I am finally starting to feel better mental-health-wise & picking up projects I want to do.

🌰🌰🌰 Squirrel Collection Originals & Prints - ya'll can use PATRONSQ to get 30% off the original or a print, obv. I recommend the original because that's a bigger savings & value for you. This page is private for you until I make it public in a couple weeks 🌰🌰🌰

So I've never drawn a squirrel in my life. They seem too mundane, kind like pigeons or finches - so I never thought to really stop and look at them closely. Yet, they are a Northern Animal. My goal was to make an aesthetically pleasing, inviting spring image of a squirrel based on one of those Cat TV vids I was watching...with my cats...yes, I never watch those alone ever. At one point, a clip of a squirrel running through a blossoming apple tree cut in, and I thought, "Wow, that's beautiful with the contrast of the dark squirrel against the delicate, tiny flowers." 

Preparation Sketches & Composition

Part of what made squirrels intimidating to paint is the anatomy and the floof. Step 1 was to sketch some squirrels to absorb their anatomic shapes.

These are kinda lop-sided from drawing at an angle, haha.

Watercolor is either a blessing or curse when it comes to fur. It can feel heavy, bristly, dingy or it can feel light like a cloud if executed right. I had to figure out how to paint the tail so it felt light, round, and lively. I did more sketches to practice this and the anatomy further.

Then, I made this larger watercolor painting to test if the tail texture scales up. Sometimes with watercolor, it does not. The line art in this one is matte pencil, which I think looks very lush and soft. The sharp lines in the tail are made by scratching into the paper, which redirects the paint along a channel.

I collected squirrel and flower references. At first, I thought I was going to paint a cherry tree. Upon inspection, what I was really looking for is the apple blossom for the flower shape. It was tricky knowing how big to paint the squirrel relative to the flowers, and how thick the branches should be. Choose the wrong size, and the squirrel will look like Godzilla.

Apple vs. Cherry blossom - the apple has a more gradated pink-white flower that's more structured instead of frilly. 

I did a few very tiny thumbnail sketches in my sketchbook to get the most dynamic, flowing composition, like you are seeing the squirrel mid-run looking back at you.

Colors

Usually, I do color tests, however...this time I just...sat and thought really hard about it for a few days. It was not like I was going to mix custom colors, however it was very important I picked the right paint pigment for blue and "yellow". The gradient you see from top to bottom is Cotman Watercolor series 1 Ultramarine to PWC Series C Turquoise Blue Light. Blue is one of the most difficult watercolors to work with since often sky gradients look either muddy, heavy, or grainy - or just the wrong blue. I have many paintings I am very discontent with the sky because of the blue pigment choice. The "yellow" is a very watery, subtle blend between HWC Permanent Yellow Orange & PWC Leaf Green. I almost never use yellow itself because the cadmium yellows are usually too dark or have a chalky substance added to them.

Painting

The painting went fairly quickly. I did not mask anything this time. First was the gradient blue, then initial flower shapes, the tail (in case I screwed it up and had to start over), branches, silver acrylic outlines, then the rest of the squirrel, finally any black ink. Most of the time spent was me procrastinating on digitizing it, which took several hours of removing dust & pencil lines. Pencil lines sometimes get trapped under the paint & can't be erased. I spend a lot of time on digitizing because these faults really show in a wall-size A0 print. 

Lemmie know your thoughts & what Northern Animal I should paint next! I am thinking of returning to crows or trying my hand at magpies, but I feel I am painting too many birds.