Tuesday 16 June 2009

Sparkly is always good

Ages ago, I bought a bottle of Winsor & Newton iridescent medium. Like so many of my art supplies, it lay around unused till last night I finally dug it out to have a play around.

I was using pans, so rather than mix it with the paint, I waited till the washes had dried and then brushed the iridescent medium over the top, before painting the outline.


Here's some autumn leaves. (No idea why I got the idea to paint autumn leaves in June, but anyway...) if you click on the image to make it bigger, you can kind of see the glittery bits.

I did some butterflies too, but they didn't come out very well due to me not being able to remember what butterflies looked like. And it didn't even occur to me to look for butterfly pictures on the internet! I think the iridescent medium works really well for butterfly wings so I'm going to do more of these, and hopefully the next lot might look a bit more like butterflies!


Oh and I'm having scanner trouble again. The colours of the butterflies are a lot more muted in real life, somehow the scanner has done the opposite to what it usually does and saturated everything rather than washing it out. The colours of the leaves are pretty much spot-on though.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think your iridescent medium may be different to mine. Mine is pearly rather than sparkly and it is opaque, whereas if you've painted it on top of the colour, yours must be transparent. Mine is Matisse brand, which is for acrylics.(I work for them)

Alex said...

Good looking post Aveen ^^ I can't really see it on the scan, but I could tell they'd look nice on paper.
Thanks again for your comment on my recent sketch. It's good to be back too, but I won't be posting again for a bit of time because I'll be busy working on ideas for my wedding invitation card :) I don't have a lot of time, but I need to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator ASAP :D I might post some of the sketches I did for this project much later when the printing is in progress.

Sue said...

Neat! Isn't experimenting fun?

Taunnya said...

Your pictures are wonderful! I love adding sparkle to things. I have colored glitter paint which I bought a few years ago. I sneak it in to my projects now and then.

bubblemunch said...

I have the W&N iridescent medium too. First time I used it I wasn't that impressed but then I realised I hadn't shaken the bottle!

I mix mine in with my watercolours and love it in pastel shades.

Your butterflies are sweet!

Mauricio Sapata said...

Hi... thanks for your comment. Those pics were all taken in Crystal Palace where I live.
By the way... nice watercolours in here! I use to do as well but stopped since photography is taking over my time off, I've got a kit I bought few time ago and I'm intending to use again ( I actually used to draw my 3D glasses on my website http://www.picturenoise.com/3Dclickhere.html) anyway... I'll show you when I do some more, it would be nice to get an opinion with someone more experienced.

Lynn said...

I mostly use irridescent medium when painting snow. It gives a really nice cold sparkly effect.

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