Artic Explorers

Creating these polar bear landscapes involved a series of techniques and multi-stepped processes. First we sketched our horizon lines and landscape idea's. Then using a wet-on-wet, salted watercolor treatment for a Northern Lights sky feeling, we then added a watercolor wash, covered with plastic wrap to create the frozen ice surface. 

 

The second week of the project started with more polar bear drawing studies. We then cut templates of our final polar bears, using white acrylic to stencil them onto our watercolor landscape backgrounds. We finished by colored pencil to add back in the details. You can see how varied and interesting each piece is, reflecting the vision of the different artists.

 

I love the size we worked at! It really felt expansive and captured the beauty of the Arctic landscape. (See happy artist above!)

I especially love the way the polar bear family (above) is interacting with each other! (See detail below)

We found that using a template is great way to create multiple images, or mirror images. I love the brother and sister bears above!

Using watercolors on already wet paper creates sky patterns that reminded us of the Aurora Borealis.

 (Click on the one above to see the two wrestling cubs!)

You can't tell by these pictures, but the very last thing we did was to spray a light coat of silver glitter over the entire surface of each piece and it really added a "frozen" and glittery feeling!

Bravo everyone!

(Sorry to the Wednesday afternoon class. I didn't get ONE picture that day!)