Lately I have been really trying my hand at gouache. It is its capacity at being both opaque and translucent that slowly enticed me, when I thought I was for sure in love with the transparency of watercolour (which I still am)...

So when Rosalie came up with this lovely class, it felt like the most natural thing to try it out!

Seeing as most of Rosalie's pieces are inspired by her own experiences and observations of nature, I wanted to have my own image references for this piece. Sadly only one of the two elements are based on my own references, as I haven't been able to see much nature as of late.

I had in my room these beautiful Ursula Purple Thistle and thought they were perfect for the botanical parts of the piece. 

Since I like having a bit of storytelling in my work, I chose a Peacock Butterfly for the animal (reference on Pinterest), even though I am not particularly partial to butterflies. The Peacock Butterfly can be found in Scotland and even lay their eggs on thistle, so it made sense. Plus its colours are beautiful!

Step 1:

I started with the sketch, using a mechanical pencil. I didn't erase much of the sketch before painting as I don't mind the pencil strokes showing through the paint.

Step 2: 

I then moved on to the first layer of colour, using Rohrer & Klingner coloured inks instead of watercolour, as they wouldn't be reactivated after they dried. My plan was to as everything layed out with the inks, then go over the flowers with gouache and only adding details on the butterfly. However I didn't like the colours on the wings.

Step 3:

So I ended up covering most of the butterfly in gouache and to maintain a difference in texture and keep a bit of transparency to the piece, left the flowers in ink and added a watercolour background.

Step 4:

Finally, while I was pleased with the overall piece, something was bothering me. The lines were a bit blurry, not neat enough. I took out my Sakura Micron black ink pen in 01 and did some lineart, which makes sense with my art style.

 

Sorry for such a lenghty explanation! I hope you will like what I came up with and I am actually quite motivated to do several of these compositions!