Seagull

Our new challenge at TioT is On the Wild Side (featuring Animals of Birds).  I love this one as it's something a bit different - gets your creativity all fired up!

I am still exploring how far I can go with drawing and I wanted to do a page about gulls ...

For the first 30+ years of my life, I lived in-land and only came to the beach on holiday.  I remember sitting in the back of the car with my brother waiting to be the first to see the sea.  The excitement of that stays with me.

We moved to Poole a few years ago and now live next to the beach.  Seeing the sea each day still gives me a thrill and when I am in my garden and a gull floats above me or stands on the roof calling (as they do!) it reminds me of where I now live and how much I love it here.

So this was the background inspiration to my page.

I started by drawing my gull and then I sketched in the land.  I stamped some elements here and there and some fish in the sea (hard to see in the photo) before using gelatos and watercolour pencils to colour my page.

One of the most fun parts was painting waves in water and then feeding acrylic ink into the water - it just spreads out in the most lovely way travelling along the watery paths you create.  Amazing to see!

I spent some time getting the journalling right and then used a stylised text to handwrite it.

The finishing touch was some drizzles of clear tar gel which I coloured with acrylic inks for some texture.