Antilles pink toed spider

Due to being ill yesterday I was not at work so nothing to report for Monday.


Today I am back in the studio at the zoo and back to painting the spider illustration.  Last week when I had started this illustration I had in mind a background but then I changed my mind during Wednesday. Today I am continuing with the change of plan but I had already painted the spider in a black base colour onto my paper. I wanted to paint tree bark under it and with the technique I use this would mean the spider would get painted over. So, (and I don't know why I have never thought of this before!), I placed magic tape (a softer kind of sellotape) over the spider and after rubbing it down carefully, to get a good 'stick' and seal, I cut round the spider shape with my scalpel. I wasn't sure this would work but it might protect the spider enough so that I wouldn't have to paint it in again as a base coat.


I then mixed a range of browns and painted the area for the bark over with the darkest tone and then using a dry brush stroke technique I applied the other colours in layers (dark to light) allowing each one to dry before painting over it. I then went back in with a dark tone to add a little definition to texture. This is a quick way to get something that resembles bark. The backgrounds do not need to be accurate on the illustrations I do. They are just needed to 'place' the animal - it can be a plain colour or simply imply an environment. 

Once dried I carefully lifted off the magic tape and was relieved that it not only came away without lifting the spider base coat but that it had sealed nicely around it, protecting it successfully from the paint I had just put on.

 

I tidied up a few gaps around the legs and added a shadow under the spider before starting on the beastie itself. Working on the legs at the back I started laying in the hairs using a small brush splaying the bristles to create thin multiple hair lines with each brush stroke.

  

Apart from scanning in a couple of old zoo photo's for Phil, I was working only on the spider today; still feeling under the weather  slowed my progress. Hoping to have this beastie finished tomorrow if all goes well.