WIP - Green Sea Turtle

WIP - body and shell segments painted

It's time for an update on my progress on the Green Sea Turtle painting (I introduced this WIP in an earlier post).  This part, painting in the body and shell segments, was super fun!

I started with the shell segments.  My first step for each segment was to paint a wash of Quinacridone Gold throughout the segment.  While the wash was wet, I dropped in some Ultramarine around the outer edges to create a wet-into-wet mixing of green.  I went in again with Indanthrone Blue for the very outer edge.  The wash was still damp by the time I introduced touches of Burnt Sienna and Quinacridone Violet.

I approached the body segments very similarly, though I was shooting for more red-brown tones rather than green for the shell.  I started with a wash of Quinacridone Gold, then dropped in mixes of Burnt Sienna and Quinacridone Violet, mostly along the outer edges.  The final step for each body segment was some Indanthrone Blue along the outer edges.  I often did not bother to wash my brush before dipping into the Indanthrone Blue, so I was actually adding a more deep blue/purplish mixture for the outer edges.

In both cases of the shell and body segment painting, I allowed the paints to mingle together in wet-into-wet fashion, with almost no brush mixing on the paper.

I am happy with how my sea turtle is coming together!  My next step is to work more of the shadow areas, particularly on the body between the head and arm.  I also plan to paint the background as a variety of blues and blue-greens, with application of salt to help create more texture, and blossoms and edges too.  I envision the surrounding water to be almost cloud-like.  We'll see how it actually turns out!