Steampunk Jellyfish
[Image ID] A portrait orientated piece done in watercolour and pen. The background is purple and the jellyfish is orange and brown tones. There is a clockwork key, a chimney and some cogs attached to the segmented dome of the jellyfish. Rectangular linked chains hang down by the tentacles. [description end]
If you’ve been following my work for a while you may remember the ‘Clockwork Moon’ painting I did last year which was also featured in the Behind the Label exhibition at Peterborough Museum; I really enjoyed the process of creating that painting so I decided to create further artwork on a similar theme. If you haven't seen it, or want to have another look, the Clockwork Moon can be viewed here.
I started this piece by sketching the jellyfish out digitally, as I find it helpful to get a good idea of what I want my final painting to look like before I start working on paper.
The first step of this painting was to wet the entire sheet of paper and create the loose purple background on which I would paint the jellyfish. Once the purple was dry I printed out my sketch onto ordinary printer paper and used a light box to trace it over to the watercolour paper. I chose a reddish-brown toned watercolour pencil to trace the sketch with as then it would seamlessly blend into the painting’s colour scheme when I painted over it.
When working on the main part of any watercolour painting I tend to work in layers, slowly deepening the shadows each time. Once all the layers of paint were dry I outlined the jellyfish with a brown fineliner; and like with the watercolour pencil, I chose the brown tone to better blend in with the colours of the painting.
I used several sizes of fineliner and I made a conscious choice to use a thicker pen on the metal areas such as the chains and gears and a thinner one on the more delicate fabric parts. The ‘canopy’ of the jellyfish was inspired by the fabric envelope seen on zeppelins which are a common feature of the steampunk style.
To finish the painting I used a thin white gel pen to add highlights to some of the metal areas as well as draw the subtle bubble details in the background.
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Watercolour paints: Windsor & Newton Cotman
Paper: Daler Rowney Aquafine Smooth
Brown fineliner: Fabre-Castell Pitt Artist in ‘small’ & ‘medium‘
White gel pen: Sakura Gelly Roll in 0.5 & 0.8
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Artwork ©Dragonsflyatsunset 2023, all rights reserved.