The Squirrels

Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 8:29 PM
squirrel, ink wash and neocolor
ink wash with neocolor applied on top on hot pressed paper

My sister and brother-in-law's cabin in New Mexico is in the Sangre de Cristo mountains about 30 miles from Taos, NM.  It is nestled among 20 or so other cabins, most of which are vacation homes.  The week I went to spend up there was moving in furniture week.  

On the night Terry arrived with the moving van it had been raining hard with roaring thunder and flashes of lightning (both of which I rarely experience).    He'd traveled from Albuquerque passing several washed out roads to get to the cabin.  After unloading the furniture he surprised us with a cord of wood in the van.  They just threw it in a pile in front of the cabin to be stacked later.

The next morning a family of squirrels had taken up residence and the dog was all over the pile sniffing out the critters.  We laughed thinking the squirrels were probably having a good old time teasing the dog!  The kids ran for cameras and captured several good shots of them and from those I did the watercolor below and the ink wash and neocolor above.  I approached the wc like I do a figure drawing and it seemed to work for me.  It took about an hour to paint.  The one above I did later quickly with a niji brush filled with diluted Noodler's ink  and then laid some neocolor crayon over it and wiped with a damp brush.  It took no more than 15 minutes to do and I wasn't as careful about proportions on it.  But I liked the finished sketch.


5 comments

  1. Anonymous Says:

    the squirrel looks beautiful with those large eyes and so does your ink and wash :D

  2. Ai Says:

    The squirrel looks great Marta. I think the figure sketching approach works wonderfully here. I am glad the bears leave you alone. Did you get to sketch the bear?

  3. Ai Says:

    Marta, I have checked out your NM photos they are lovely. May I have your permission to paint from them? Thank you in advance.

  4. Teri Says:

    Marta, your squirrels are adorable! This R&R did you lots of good and I'm so happy you did it. I am going to look at your photos the next time I am on wifi, I just know they are gorgeous.

  5. This is "craquant" you should make note cards or something from it.

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