Thank you Alice for yet another great class! Loved it! I had a go at painting a gouache butterfly over the holidays and it was such a lovely way to spend a winter afternoon, even despite me mistaking my tea for the water jar - classic Anna. Initially I wanted to get back in there after the first painting session, to add more details, but decided not to and varnished it as is.

A few weeks ago I found an old book full of nature photographs at a thrift store, so I decided to pick an image from it as reference, an orange-tip butterfly. I looked up some online public domain imagery as additional references for details that were out of focus or not very visible in the picture. Then, I sketched the butterfly on a tiny canvas with my favourite pencil; the col-erase from prisma.

Butterfly gouache painting: Orange-tip - image 1 - student project

Once that was done, I went in with gouache paint to actually paint the butterfly

Butterfly gouache painting: Orange-tip - image 3 - student project .....which was great fun! The end result is shown below. Since I had some acrylic varnish lying around, I then decided to varnish the tiny canvas (it's 10 by 10 I think? maybe even smaller?

Butterfly gouache painting: Orange-tip - image 4 - student project ... and the varnished piece below:

Butterfly gouache painting: Orange-tip - image 5 - student project Thank you Alice for such a great class! It was perfectly timed too: one of my art goals for next year is to do at least one personal art development project each week (it could be anything from reading up on a topic, taking a Skillshare class, a short online course, going to the zoo or the park to sketch animals or going to a life-drawing session). And your class and your sweet comments on instagram really got me excited about learning all the things in 2020! Any suggestions for classes/books/podcasts/events in (the north of) the Netherlands are more than welcome!

Wishing you all a wonderful 2020, filled with art, laughter and joy!

Anna Sieben

Medical Illustrator

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