Frog's Legs (Neon Pink Webbed Feet)

This is a small painting I did some time ago, it was likely done from my imagination on the spot (rather than copying prior doodles out of notebooks). The technique is a little rough in spots, but the colours are really fantastic. Notice how the pink of the frogs feet is reflecting off the rocks just below, this creates a luminous glowing effect. The burnt seinna sunset is a cool effects too. The colour combination in the sky (burnt sienna and ultramarine) is something I have used since the beginning of when I painted. At that time I only had about four or five colours. It is good advice for a beginner to start with just a few basic colours and then work your way up to using the more exotic colours.

Right now I am thinking about moving my style a bit towards a graphical look- something that would look good on a cellphone backdrop for instance. Lot's of contrast, bright colour, and strong design.

Frog's Legs (Neon Pink Webbed Feet), 5 x 7" cold press 2007 (No. 1468)

Origins of Original

The doodleism style typically follows a set of small drawings from my workplace notebooks and lab books, but in this case everything in the painting was conceived of as I painted. It actually took five months to complete this painting...which is longer than 'Construction at site 22, lab book#8' which took about 4 months. 'Construction' took so long due to the extreme amount of detail, but in this case the some slow progress was because of the challenge of coming up with original art on the spot, you sort of wait for the right time and feeling and then put the idea to paper. I also spent a lot of time on the quality of the finish, making sure the edges were well done and the washes smoothed out. The last thing I added was the trail of ants on the far left, partly to balance the composition there, and partly because I dropped some black paint there and had to hide it with something !

2014 (Mar-Jul) 44x30" watercolour ,