Officially the Republic of the Congo, this country is also known as Congo-Brazzaville, or just the Congo. It is in central Africa towards the west, a small part of the country is on the Atlantic Ocean coast. The main feature is the Congo river that meanders through mountain valleys, farm land and dense jungle. The Congo and surrounding area are one of the last refuges of lowland gorillas and critically endangered mountain gorillas. International conservation efforts have been successful, but poaching and habitat loss are a constant threat to the gorillas and all the other wildlife. Most of the people actually live in the city called Brazzaville which is about the same size as Montreal, just quite a bit hotter.
The painting depicts a dense jungle with the proverbial gorillas in the mist. I wanted the composition to camouflage the gorillas such that they blended in with their surroundings at first glance. I made a page full of sketches of gorillas in order to get the silhouettes looking plausible enough. The colour scheme was intended to be near neutral with green, yellow, blue and magenta accents. Most of the painting was done with a combination of phthalo green (PG36) and quin violet (PV19) which create a range of greens, bluish greys, and pale red. Yellow (PY154) and blue (PB15) were used in the water and sky. The last step was to apply some texturing and contrast with perylene green (PBk31). It is the dark olive colour in the jungle.
World Inspired Landscapes: Congo, watercolour 4.5 x 12" cold press, January 2022 (No. 2970)
No comments:
Post a Comment