The Seahorse Under the Sea (art process)

The Philippines is blessed with beautiful nature including a different world underwater. Unfortunately for me, I don't know how to swim, so I can't enjoy it as much as others. However, I can imagine how phenomenal it must be to see that world.

Last weekend, I decided to paint again after quite a while and the theme that came to mind was under the sea... particularly, a seahorse underwater.

On this post, I'm going to share the progress as to how I'm able to create this artwork. I hope you enjoy it!




First, I prepared the things I needed. Since I decided to use acrylic paint for this artwork, I chose my canvas pad. You might also noticed that I already placed some masking tape around it to create a frame.





I only have five colors: the primary colors (red, blue and yellow) as well as black and white. So, I had to mix them to create the colors that I want to use. The ones you see above are for the background or the color of the sea, which you could see below.




I chose the lighter shade to put above as there's more light near the surface... and it gets darker as we go deeper underwater.





Then I added black which would represent the bottom and behind it are some plants.




Then, using an old sponge, I mixed in various colors to create some corals. I didn't cover all the black part, so we could still recognize the base.




I then added more shapes of plants and corals as well as long plant similar to the background, but with a much brighter color for emphasis. With this, my underwater is complete and all that's left is to create the main subject or focus of the painting.

I was thinking whether to paint a turtle, a kind of fish and so on, but I ended up choosing a seahorse.

I sketched it using a pencil first. There isn't much detail as this is just a guide for the seahorse's shape and size.

Once I got the guide, I started painting the seahorse. :)







After painting the base color, I just enjoyed adjusting and detailing the rest of the seahorse. I guess I enjoyed the process too much that I forgot to take photos in between... sorry!

I added some highlights to make it pop-up more. After doing some more adjustments, one thing is left to do... and it's one of the most satisfying part for me. It's taking off the masking tape around it.





I kind of like how it turned out. Using acrylic on canvas really looks better. The last time I painted, I just used my solid water color on my watercolor pad... The result was also good, but I had to add more coating, but for acrylic paint on canvas, I need not do a lot of that. :)

Someone's happy to paint again. lol I'll try to paint again when I get more free time. What theme should I do next?

Thanks for checking the process out and I hope you enjoyed it. See you around! (^^,)/