Koala painting in acrylics had a few challenges. I knew I was up for it because I wanted to capture this beautiful creature. There he was staring at me from his habitat at the zoo. I want you to see what I seen when he looked at me. Yet I didn’t want to paint him in a zoo setting. His eyes were locked on to me as if to say take a picture, so I did.
This painting started out like all the others with a basic sketch. I want to show off this Koalas’ beauty and his piercing eyes. Before I can move forward with this painting I do what I do with all my paintings and drawings I research them. I found out it is a marsupial native to Australia and only eats plants. The environment of the Koala is trees, it sleeps, eats and uses them for camouflage.
KOALA PAINTING COLOR CHOICES
This koala painting does justice to colors of this Koala, I love the beautiful shades of grays and white. Some are warm colors and others cool. The coat of fur is dense and short. While others parts like around his ears are longer and have a wiry like texture. As I am picking the colors for the back ground I wanted to bring the Koala out of the camouflage. By introducing yellow, reds and the green of the leaves the contrast pushing his image front and center. Now that the choices are made it’s time to paint.
While painting the fur I need to show the soft textures because it is one of the best features of the Koala. I’m using a variety of brushes from liner to fan and layering my strokes in the direction the fur wraps around his body. By using opaque paint with glazes on top I know how to work in the colors to I get what I’m look for.
All elements work to support the painting
This guy’s belly has some browns around the inner thigh which I found helped to define the shape of his leg. The pink around his mouth, nose and eyes showed me that underneath all that fur was pink flesh. There is staining to the corners of his mouth from the leaves he eats, also he has a black nose and black claws.
The white hair seems to be longer especially around his ears, under his arms, neck and chest. These areas became challenging to paint because of the different shades of white and gray. Getting my brush strokes to feather back into the grays naturally will help define the fur.
Large bold strokes of color define the background. I think the contrast in textures is important because these elements lead your eye to that stunning face. His round greenish gray eyes draw us into his world
Koala Painting
Every painting is a record of the beauty I see in these animals. More about my interest is art is here.