Behind the Scenes - Giraffe Painting

This is the first official blog post for Nicole Kuyten Art. I hope you are excited. I will try my best to share regularly the behind the scenes of my studio and art practice.

Today I wanted to share with you this 10"x14" Giraffe painting I just completed.

I must admit this painting gave me a bit of anxiety before I started it. Actually... all my animal paintings stress me out a little. As a self-diagnosed perfectionist I rarely give myself room for failure. This piece sat for a least 4 months before I ever started putting paint to paper. I was afraid of ruining it before I even gave it a chance. 

Overcoming Fear of Starting

As you can see I clearly finished the piece. How did I do that? Well I did some research, I put it in my sketch book and I planned a head.

This image is not the most flattering and it's not meant to be. What I've done here is a very basic sketch of my subject and blocked in the most minimal information needed for the main painting. What's not seen here is the colour mapping where I plan out the colours I want to use in each piece. Something I've learned is that whenever I've started my process with a sketch these are the pieces I tend to love the most. Measure twice cut once as they say. The same applies to painting.

From here I felt more confident to get started.

The Process

Her are a few pics I remembered to grab as a completed the Giraffe

The Finish Artwork

This finished Giraffe in Watercolour painting is 10"x14" in portrait orientation. It was painted on Arches 100% cotton 140lb watercolour paper. 

Thanks for sticking around this long! It is my hope to bring you more behind the scenes work before anyone else. The benefit of joining my email list is you get to enjoy my ramblings about art and painting. 

I'm always looking for more idea so feel free to leave them in the comments!

Happy Sunday :)