Blue-eyed Darner Mating Wheel -Work in progress 1

While I'm waiting for my Red Tailed Hawk portrait to dry and do the nit picking on it, I started a new painting today. This one is acrylic and alcohol ink on Yupo paper and is inspired by a photograph I took at Rancho San Rafael Park the other day. I started with a light sketch and then proceeded to apply acrylic ink very wet with a brush and then mist it with a mister bottle. I dry it with a hair dryer on low heat and just keep playing with the color until I like it.

This is the first painting step, just applying the acrylic ink to the Yupo and letting it move around.
Misting with a squirt bottle adds interesting watercolor effects.

Several layers will be required to build the density of color.
Detail is added with watercolor pencils.