Say hi to Meilin! This adorable panda painting was all about learning how to capture color and light.

Giving depth to white fur is a challenge. When working with watercolors, white areas in the painting are actually not painted with white. Keeping the white of the paper untouched is what creates white in the painting. Because of this process, creating depth to white areas becomes very tricky.

This painting started with a simple pencil sketch to get the shapes and composition in. The next step, which was experimental for me, was painting in warm and cool tones to build depth. Painting in the blue gives the illusion of shadow and coolness, allowing the area to recede. Painting in the yellow gives warmth and brings areas forward. This is more apparent in the white areas of the fur. I then painted in the black areas of the fur and details on top of that.

Using this process of painting in the cool and warm tones before painting on the darker color layers yielded more depth. This experiment has now become a part of my watercolor process!