Summer is a great time for dragonflies, damselflies and painting!
In my opinion insects really lend themselves well to the small 5×7-inch format. A few years ago I had a lot of fun painting several Odes, the nickname for Odonata, which is the Latin order for damselflies and dragonflies. Painting the clear wings of dragonflies and damselflies in transparent watercolor is a fun challenge. Any white you see in the painting is the white of untouched paper. For these wings there are a lot of spaces to paint around. It’s possible to paint opaque whites over the greens, but to my eye that always seems to create a chalky appearance that doesn’t look right against the transparent pigments on the paper.
A matted print of this painting, as well as the original, are available in my Etsy shop.
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