Last week I worked on a painting inspired by the ‘Princess and the Frog’ (aka ‘The Frog Prince’). Since I’ve been down with a migraine since then and haven’t even done any journaling I thought I’d update here with a walk-through of the painting, since I did actually remember to take progress shots.

Step 1

I always sketch the idea in my notebook first to get an idea of composition, then I transfer it properly to the board. I did this on 12×10″ canvas (aka illustration) board, which I really love for mixed media. I sketched lightly in 2b pencil, then put in the features with a hb mechanical pencil. Kneaded erasers remove pencil from canvas without smudging it.

'Princess & The Frog' Walkthrough Step 1

Step 2

I always paint in the face first, because that’s the thing that’s most likely to go wrong in some way. I often tend to rush to finish a piece, so getting the most detailed part finished right off works well for me. I paint my faces entirely in acrylic, using a light and dark peach, with cream and white for the highlights. I start with the lightest peach all over, then add the darks, then the lights in cream. I re-blend it all while it’s wet with the light peach and then add the lightest lights with white and darken the darkest areas with graphite.

For this one, since the frog was so tiny I also did some underpainting and detail on him first before adding the background. He’s acrylic too, dark and light purple with lavender.

'Princess & The Frog' Walkthrough Step 2

Step 3

The next part is adding in the main elements. I added the dress, which is a piece of ink-dyed calico collaged on with soft gel medium, then painted her hair in acrylic and detailed the rest of her face in gel pen.

I underpainted the main colours of the background in watercolour, which lifts off well on the canvas board. I used a light blue for the sky, basic green for the reeds and prussian blue for the water. I used tissue paper to dapple the sky and lift off areas of colour, then a clean paintbrush with just clean water to ‘swirl’ the water into a circular motion.

'Princess & The Frog' Walkthrough Step 3

Step 4

The final step was to pull it all together. I gave her a book paper crown which I coloured with gold-yellow watercolour and spread it out to be a halo effect around her head. (You can’t see so much of the halo in the final picture as there really is). I painted the reeds in two tones of green acrylic, then added the mirroring to the water in the same colours but mixed with glazing medium to add translucence, then used watercolour to add the pink reflection of the dress. I decided at this point the water looked sparse and painted in a few lily pads in the dark green acrylic. I added the final detailing on the lilypads, the frog and a few strands of hair with Sakura glaze and soufflé pens.

Finally, I added any missing shadows, details and lines with coloured pencil and graphite. I fixed it all with a sprayed coat of varnish.

'Princess and the Frog' Walkthrough Step 4

This is the finished piece, entitled ‘Some Frogs Are Purple’. Ann asked me on twitter if my princess planned on kissing her frog. Of course the answer is no because as we all know some frogs are purple, which means they’re not princes, they’re just magical.

He’s probably good for 3 wishes though.

'Some Frogs Are Purple' 12x10" mixed media on canvas board. © 2010 Klair Scattergood

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