Jasmine Becket-Griffith Painting Tutorial: Butterfly Fairies

Part Eight: Subtle Foliage

I've attached several photos as one image onto this installment. Looking at the picture, go from left to right, top to bottom, and you will see the order in which I have taken them. Tip: If you are reading Wattpad on your computer/PC, you can enlarge the accompanying photo by right-clicking your mouse on the picture, and choosing the "open in new window/tab" option! 

 Now that I have her pretty eyes finished, I want to let them dry for awhile. Acrylic paints dry fast, but once I have several layers that I have done in a short period of time, I like to move on to another part of the painting to give the existing paint layers a chance to "settle." I previously had filled in the background layers with a lovely blue/green gradient, and now I'd like to give it a bit more definition.

 Some of my paintings have very elaborate backgrounds, particularly if there are elements in the background that help tell a story or help put the figure into some narrative context. Sometimes for dramatic effect, I leave a background all solid black or another solid colour. Sometimes I don't paint a background at all (usually in the case of merchandise/product design or commissioned illustrations where the primary figure will be "cut out" and used on its own so no background is needed). For this piece, the primary figure is the focus and I just want a subtle atmospheric background that won't detract from the fairy character or her butterfly friends. 

 I create a new mixture similar in hue to the background's existing gradient layer - a blend of blues, greens, Naples Yellow, a bit of Van Dyck Brown to dull it a bit. I'm going to use this mixture as a base for all of the foliage I'll be adding shortly. 

 Referring to the picture attached to this Wattpad tutorial, you will see several photos. Let me explain what is happening in the first two photos, on your upper left hand side.

 I have taken the mixture approximating the background colour on my palette and added just a bit more blue and brown so that I have a shade only slightly darker than the bit of sky up at the top of the painting. Using a medium round soft brush, I very quickly paint in a few abstract vine-like shapes. Since this colour is very close to the background colour, this will give these little vines a hazy and distant look. I do this quite fast, just one layer of paint, it is not meant to be precise or really appear to be any specific type of plant. I continue the process into the lower and darker parts of the background in the painting, adding more deep blues and browns so that the vine/tree forms continually are just a little darker than the layer preceeding them. Once I get to the very bottom of the painting (where the background turns into the actual ground/forest floor where the fairy is sitting) I stop painting the vines, as I have now come to a colour so dark that it would blend seamlessly into the darkened floor layer. 

 Referring to the picture attached to this Wattpad tutorial, you will see several photos. Let me explain what is happening in the upper right hand photo and the lower two photos, all of which refer to the grass. 

 Using a technique almost the opposite of the vine painting, I now take the dark background colour of the floor and add some LIGHTER tones to create the grass. Just a few drops of white and yellow bring it up to a nice medium dark green. Using a tiny thin brush, I quickly begin cross-hatching some lines that resemble blades of grass. I put some thought into the fairy figure sitting on top of them, thinking about how grass reacts when something heavy is on top of it (it bends forward, gets smooshed, etc.). I continue painting in blades of grass all along the bottom of the painting. I also throw in some larger leaf and twig type shapes for visual interest. 

 Once this first layer of grass is dry, I add a bit more white/yellow to the previous grass colour mixture. With this I will add some medium highlights to the existing blades of grass. I mostly go over the blades of grass near the "front" of the background, which forces the un-highlighted grass to recede into the distance a bit. 

 Once this second layer is dry, I add even still more white/yellow to the previous grass colour mixture and add just a few more select highlights. A couple of curled leaves, a few lines to give some of the "closer" pieces of grass some more physical presence, and voila - the background is done!