Steampunk Tankard
[Image ID] A watercolour painting of a steampunk tankard. It has rusty cogs, dials and technical paraphernalia on it. The background behind it is purple. [description end]
This is one of the pieces I had on exhibition, during autumn 2023, and now those exhibitions are finished I’m finally sharing it online.
The inspiration for this piece started with a Heidelberg tankard which belonged to my Great Grandmother.
[Image ID] Photo of the Heidelberg tankard that inspired the painting. It has a shiny, grey, metallic, hinged lid and has a slightly raised textured painting of the castle on the tankard itself. [description end]
I liked the shape of the tankard, and so decided to use it as a basis for a steampunk painting. All of my steampunk artworks so far have started in this way, by choosing a shape or form, and embellishing that shape with the eclectic industrial paraphernalia which is typical of the steampunk style.
I sketched the design of the tankard digitally, then printed a copy, and used a lightbox to transfer the design to watercolour paper.
I painted in the purple background first since it would ultimately be 'behind' the tankard design. Once that was dry I began to add layers of paint to the tankard itself.
I finished the piece by adding some brown fineliner to outline all the details, and using a white gel pen to pick out a few highlights.
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Main painting
Watercolour paints: Windsor & Newton ‘Cotman’ range
Fineliners: Fabre-Castell Pitt Artist in Sepia
White gel pen: Sakura Gelly Roll in ‘0.05’ size.
Watercolour paper: Daler Rowney Aquafine smooth
Digital sketch
Computer Type: Windows
Program: FireAlpaca
Drawing Tablet: Gaomon M106K
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