Why dost thou frown Narwhal???

In celebration for a successful Cetacean art contest and raising more:
awareness, appreciation, action and artsy vibes, I made my first ever whale art!

Cetaceans are finned, carnivorous, marine animals living in the sea! Another tip to identify these creatures is if their tails move up and down instead of left to right.

Yes, they are:

The 89 species of
🔸Whales
🔸Dolphins
🔸Porpoise (similar to Dolphins, only with short and almost no long beak/nose)

To add:

🔸 Whalesharks are not whales, they are giant filtering sharks (note their tails move sideways) and are fish.

🔸 Killer whales are not whales, they are Dolphins, unique and only one of their kind having black and white color (Orca species).

🔸 Whales are very intelligent creatures, like crows, they have the intelligence of a 7 year old, they are family oriented, have their own communication by high frequency sounds, clicks and echoes.

🔸Little is known about their language and discerning its meaning. But one thing is for sure they understand and remember even if they are not as consistent, they can also feel emotions.

Like @tingulini said, they can feel and understand - what more if they feel pain?

🔸 They are large naturally but it is also because of the oceans bouyancy that they can grow so big. Gravity pulls us down limiting our skeleton to a certain point whereas, these whales are large as can be, continually growing.

That sums up most things I know about whales, all I can say is on my journey...

I have not always loved all animals, there was a time I was very selective and not know much about these animals. But, discovering my passion for art, I created a meaningful use to it such as expressing the beauty and struggle of all our animals in present time. Slowly I learn about new animals and learn to love them. Such as the owl and fox which I seldom encounter or hear of - now, the whales and dolphins and porpoises.

Source

WHALE, HELLO THERE NARWHAL!

My art and the Narwhal 🎨
For my contest I had not seen an entry of a narwhal. They are very popular to be the most unique whales because of their horn. It's not a horn like a unicorn though, this is actually their canine tooth. Their mouth is right below their horn.
Let's learn a bit more!

Wikipedia screenshot

Source: World Wildlife Org - Narwhal Information

Narwhals are not endangered if you look at wiki, altho WWF states they are at risk of being threatened. It is far from extinction but, let's not let it go there. Many other cetaceans are at risk critically.

Some facts:

🐳Narwhal Each year, they migrate from bays into the ocean as summer comes.

🐳The narwhal tusk—most commonly found on males—is actually an enlarged tooth with sensory capability and up to 10 million nerve endings inside. Some narwhals have up to two tusks, while others have none. The spiraled tusk juts from the head and can grow as long at 10 feet.

🐳 They spear their food, and are as aggressive and dangerous as they look.

Source

That's why my whale is frowning, that's also how I copied it from my reference. Moving on now!

🔸 The few attempts to keep a narwhal in captivity was a failure with the whales dying one month to four months after keeping them in an aquarium.

🔸 Similar to Polar bears Narwhals are sensitive to climate change.

MY ART PROCESS PHOTOS AND PROCEDURES

Sharing my art after some whalesome speech 🙊. My art procedure today will be a bit different. I will show less work in progress photos but I will put videos or images of the technique I used to help you make the connection and work on it if you'd like to try.

#1

Base Colors

• I start with a small round tip brush, use sky blue, yellow and green trying to create the shape of the whale.
• Below you see shades must be darker, that's the belly part where shadow is.
• The upper part is a very light yellow, you can dilute with water to create the light effect from water reflections.
• Light to dark process is always easier and safer.

To Help you Understand What is to be Done
We are expecting this technique to take place - creating base and middle tone to create shape and highlights before adding more defined details and shadows.

Consider these images below:
Applying watercolor techniques on ArtistsNetwork

Source: For image 1 and 2

I think we see clearly the before and after image here. Slowly layering shades of blue, yellow, green, purple, violet, red and some pink. The Narwhal will be formed.

Source

#2

Some background
In mind, I had some watercolor aquatic themes I wanted to do but at that moment, being relatively inexperienced with watercolor I didn't know how!

I need to show you first, some of my preferred outcomes:

Source

This is a splashy layering effect I liked! Something to this effect like watery trail or bubbles.

Art by Dessinateur 777, screenshot from Deviantart.com

This is a bubbly effect I think embodys a good dive underwater. As much as I wanted to imitate, I cannot.

WHAT DID I DO?

1. Use blue, violet, red, yellow, green, orange and pink and painted the trail of the whale in circles and curves.

• This did not seem to work because it looked horrible. Then I remembered my sister had a 2 year old acrylic tube of paint so I got it.*

2. Thick and pure, I swabbed the paint on the wet watercolor and made bubbles and curves creating a textured flow.

• Carried away, I added more and more of the white paint creating more soft round textures.
• What was meant to be the ocean, became the sky.
• I added watercolor lightly to the background, blue yellow and orange hues to match a sunset scheme.

Remember:

• It is not advisable to mix watercolor and acrylic.
• I only created textures and minimal mixing.
• Acrylic is synthetic and hardens fast so protect your watercolor and don't mix.
• Wash paintbrush often.
• Naturally these two do not mix especially if the acrylic hardens on the paper already.

Textures
Texture gives extra definition, more realistic effect or something more to look at if you want art to be interesting. Let's view some textures shall we?
Art by Karen Appleton
The drummer, 2014



Click here to view all progress photos of her art
Although upclose these textures might be very abstract and messy but it's a technique like an optical illusion. This creates realism from something unrealistic? If that's the word.

Pinterest screenshot but here's the link anyway - click!
Doesn't it blow your mind? Yes 😃😃😃
No? 😜

Try it!

Source

#3

Let it dry
Acrylic takes a short while to dry but thick textures dry out fast on the outer layer But is like a donut, press it and it oozes out the paint.

Here's a photo of it while it's still wet. And then in the morning once dry, and scanned too!

Picture 2 and 3 has it's own effect. I took a camera photo to be able to capture the depth and texture. And then a scan to make sure everything is colorful, bright and sharp.

He's kind of frowning, it's descending from.the clouds. (Angry why his kin are endangered and his family is stressed cause of oil drilling and climate change.)

I'm so happy I achieved this and ended it well. More practicr, bigger sizes and more exploration!

Remember these tags👍 🏆
#wildlife
#saveourseas
#zerowaste
#plasticpollution

Done!

I hope you enjoyed, learned and fingers crosses, hope it inspires you to try this new technique and most importantly, act on saving the planet 😃

#Thank you 💖




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