Fox Sweethearts

Maybe it's Valentine's Day on the horizon, or maybe it's being a newly wed, but yesterday morning I woke up wanting to paint something sweet and romantic.

So, I took a break from gnomes and painted a couple of fox sweethearts. The picture just popped into my head, and I immediately had to chase it down with a pencil.

Fox Sweethearts

I've had people say to me, "You do a lot of nighttime drawings." It's true, but I don't know why. I do love the moon and enjoy painting it very much. I often reply, "Maybe other people just do a lot of daytime drawings." It seems to make sense to me. If I painted everything in daylight, I don't think anyone would notice, and night is just as equal a part of our lives as the day.

A few posts back I shared the process of a raccoon illustration. A lot of folks told me here, over Facebook, or in person they enjoyed seeing the painting develop in stages and so I took a few extra pictures once again.

The pencil sketch. All of my drawings start off pretty loose,
the penning is when I actually add many of the details.

The penning--and you can see I almost forgot
to take a picture, and have started the fence wash on the right.

The first wash, with the second wash beginning
on the right side of the sky.

The second sky wash completed (two more would be added after).

Here you can see the pigment was pooling interestingly to
the right of the moon. I decided to try and save that, and create a glow.
This is a good example of the watercolors making a decision for me.

The first fence wash. I debated over
red or brown almost the entire time I was painting this.

Red won out. There are too many brown fences in
the world. The flowers undertones are watercolor.

The highlights on their petals are in white acrylic paint,
to help them 'pop' a little bit.

The final wash on the sky, before adding
the stars with more white acrylic paint.

Here you can see some of the sky bled into the moon.

I corrected that as I added the white petals and stars.

You can find the print in the shop here! I figured there was no time to waste, since February is approaching and cuddling is in the air. I'm back to my gnomes today, though I have two sketches I may scribble before the day is out. A knitting narwhal may even make an appearance....