"COCOON" Work In Progress

Hi everyone!

I seem to be able to post images again, so here's a little Wip post of Cocoon!

This painting has been a lot more slow going than I was expecting or hoping, partly because I was unwell, then things kept coming in the way.
But I will definitely have it finished for this month, and have your Process PDF ready before July rolls round. :)

You can see my final sketch above. 

I had started transferring the sketch to my initial 16" x 20" final paper, when I got the opportunity to go to an art shop (I usually stay away from those, they are terrible for my self-control), and I bought a couple sheets of A1 640gsm watercolour paper, and I just couldn't resist upping the ante and scaling up my sketch, and my final painting. 

This is the biggest format I have ever painted on so far (22"x30"), and I'm really excited!
16x20 felt big when I was painting "Adoration", hahaha, now it feels puny! I will never get enough of painting bigger. ^^

Because of all the fiddly tendrils, I decided to use masking fluid to reserve the characters so that I wouldn't go mad while painting the background. 

I used some paints I hadn't used in a while while painting that background! I could've sworn they would probably be bad by now (does paint go bad?), but they seemed to work fine. Let's see if they hold up, haha.

You can see a few of my reference images on the left there. It's rare when I print my reference, but I might do it a bit more often since I now have a good quality printer. It feels sacrilege to use it for printing on plain paper, but it does make my life easier to not have to turn around to look at my computer screen all the time. 

I wasn't sure what direction to take my creature when I got to painting it, and even at this stage, I still didn't know.
I now do, and I'm excited, although, as usual, I chose a visual that will probably be a challenge to achieve. (I want the creature to be slightly translucent, with glowing tips at the end of the tendrils - hence why I've covered the tips with masking fluid again).
Because why would I want to make my life easier...

And here's where I am at at the moment! 

I still have quite a lot of work to do on it, obviously, but its heading in the right direction.
The photos aren't the best, I am not sure why my camera is having such a hard time, I suspect it is because of the high contrast between the background and the characters.
The background should hopefully look like a bed of dark flowers, lighter towards the front and gradually disappearing into shadows at the back. If all goes well. And I don't change my mind halfway.

I hope you guys enjoyed this little sneak-peak Wip, I can't wait to show you the finished piece!

If it turns out well, I might submit it to the Beautiful Bizarre Magazine June Competition....We'll see...

Anyway, 

I hope you are all well and that you have a wonderful week-end planned.
It's my boyfriend's birthday today, so I'll be heading to his later today to celebrate and spend the week-end with him.
We should also be visiting our first flat tomorrow hopefully, wish us luck!

Love you all, 

M