Yesterday and today I have been studying and painting on this hedgehog and I thought I'd show three of the stepr to you.
First of all I need to have an idea and an urge to try to illustrate something. That I got from Lori's photo of an australian hedgehog http://www.gather.com/viewImage.jsp?fileId=3096224744009171
I thought I'd dedicate this Scandinavian one to her and hopefully she will see one in Sweden or rather not as it is best for them to stay away from gardens and cars.
I then spend quite much time finding and studying images (and lending books at the library). Only last Friday I borrowed 12 books about birds to use in addition to those I own and google and reference photos from great persons online like Tony in my Bird group.
How do I get the time? Well I sleep 6-8 hours, forget to eat and since kids left I need only to do a bare minimum of cooking and cleaning. The rest is mostly used to study art, make art and publish it online these days.
Wildlife paintings like this one I usually do in several layers and the first one is most often one to place objects and make the basic shape. Then each layer get more and more detailed
As you can see I mainly use different shades of grey
Now I have made a few layers of fur in different colours and added more of the grass in colour
As you can see I had to change the placement of the ear and the eya and change the shape of the snout. I have also added about 4-5 new layes of fur ans sticky parts
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Comments: 32
Like waving guns or wearing flag-patterned underwear is in the US?
No norse patriotism is only rarely connected to flags - only when they burn down our embassies together with our flags do we really care. Probably care mroe about wildlife (as long as it is not eating our sheep LOL which the hedgehog does not.)
Had to run to wikipedia to learn:
"Echidnas are small mammals that are covered with coarse hair and spines. Superficially they resemble both the anteaters of South America and other spiny mammals like hedgehogs and porcupines. They have snouts which have the functions of both the mouth and nose. Their snouts are elongated and slender. They have very short, strong limbs with large claws and are powerful diggers. Echidnas have a tiny mouth and a toothless jaw. They feed by tearing open soft logs, anthills and the like, and using their long, sticky tongue which protrudes from their snout to collect their prey. The Short-beaked Echidna's diet consists largely of ants and termites, while the Zaglossus species typically eat worms and insect larvae.
The four species of echidna, along with the Platypus, are the only egg-laying mammals. The female lays a single soft-shelled, leathery egg twenty-two days after mating and deposits it directly into her pouch. Hatching takes ten days; the young echidna, called a puggle, then sucks milk from the pores of the two milk patches (monotremes have no nipples) and remains in the pouch for forty-five to fifty-five days, at which time it starts to develop spines. The mother digs a nursery burrow and deposits the puggle, returning every five days to suckle it until it is weaned at seven months."
The little buggers live in a pouch for six weeks, then in a burrow for another five and a half months.
Wow, I have never seen a puggle.
Yes, yes, yes. I am from Norway, but I live in Copenhagen. And my name is terribly Danish. I really can't explain that one.
Jaja, det er veldig, veldig deilig å være norsk i Danmark. Haha. I remember those ads.
Im going to put my other round ones on in a mimute!!!!!
On my way to check out to see if I can see any of that impressive stationary
To be honest I have not seen any live since I was a child
What's his/her name?
Isaac? Reginald? Hillary? Marjorie Stewart Baxter?
I used to like to work in acrylics too. These days all my work's done in Photoshop, but I do hope to get back to painting and silkscreening in the future.
Nice work!
Pleased to meet you Reginald Hedge!