After a much longer break than anticipated I am back to the mouse book that I started quite a while back. Below are my sketches for the first two images, as I mentioned in my blog back in April, https://wp.me/p7Ohdq-j7 , the story is about a mouse’s adventures after he is caught and removed from the house.
The first painting is of the mouse in the boiler cupboard, it seems to be one of their favourite places, we even found a shrew in there once which was very vocal about being removed.
As usual I drew out the image on Bockingford paper with a pale purple watercolour pencil so that it washes away once the paint is added.
As the cupboard is dark I mixed Ultramarine, Alizarin Crimson and Lemon Yellow watercolour to make a dark grey to paint the inside shadowy areas and the back of the door. To contrast the inside with with the outside I used a mixture of Lemon Yellow and Gamboge Hue to represent the light from the room outside. Once dry, I painted another layer of the grey to increase the depth of the shadows inside the cupboard. The old piece of paper on the back of the door was painted with Yellow Ochre and a little touch of Ultramarine.
Next was the pipework which was painted using Cadmium Red, Ultramarine and Gamboge Hue, to make a dark coppery colour and for the joints I added extra Gaboge Hue for a lighter brassy look. The shadows were added using more of the grey mixture. For the mouse I used Ultramarine, a small amount of Alizarin Crimson and Yellow Ochre which tends to granulate and gives a nice texture for the fur, and I dabbed off with tissue for the lighter areas. The mouse’s shadow was painted using the same grey as the inside of the cupboard and for the mousetrap I used a watered down version of the pipework mixture. Finally I added the little details and shadows and used a black watercolour pencil on the eye and around the joints of the pipes.
The second image is the same scene looked at from the outside of the cupboard, so the room is painted with the mixture of Lemon Yellow and Gamboge Hue and the dark cupboard with the grey mix. The rest was just adding a few details to the room with the mouse trap and the jar of peanut butter to hint at what the smell was that brought the mouse out of the safety of the cupboard. This image also expresses just how small the little mouse was out in the big wide world.
Here are the two finished paintings, the start of the story where the mouse is tempted out and gets caught in the trap.
And here are the sketches for the next two images where the mouse travels in the trap and is released.
