Wishing you a 'Fab'ulous summer!

I think this new project is a fitting end to what has been a ‘Fab’ term of watercolour painting! Even though this is the last tutorial of the year for my in-person classes (until we start back in September), there’s no need to get watercolour withdrawal as I will still be working in the background getting together a couple of tutorials to see you over the summer break! So keep your eye on the Online Watercolour School.

In this project I’m going to give you a real taste of summer as we will be painting an ice lolly. I’ve chosen the retro Fab lolly which is an icon of the 1960’s. Released to the market in 1967 and made by Lyon’s Maid this lolly is thought to be the first lolly marketed specifically to girls (following the success of the rocket-shaped lolly ‘Zoom’ which was released in 1963).

With its strawberry pink ice and pretty pastel sprinkles it was an instant hit – particularly as it was originally tied to the popular TV show Thunderbirds (which had the F-A-B slogan). It even featured Lady Penelope on the wrapper.  Follow the link to take a look at one of the original Fab adverts over on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6VgYfd2sWQ

In this project we will be covering some of the basic watercolour techniques ~ so even if you are new to painting this one is a great tutorial to try as it will introduce you to working onto dry, working on wet, layering colour, using resist, lifting out and glazing.

I think this retro lolly has a real Pop Art vibe ~ not only because it was originally produced at the time when Pop Art was an exciting new genre in the art world but because it also envelops the idea of taking the everyday themes (food, comics, celebrities) from popular culture and elevating them to art status. Pop artists such as Warhol, Thiebauld and Lichtenstein helped the transition from everyday consumables to art by creating enlarged, over-sized artwork. So feel free to go as big as you would like in this project and give the humble ice lolly instant iconic status!

To begin we will mask the sprinkles and then apply base colours to each of the sections of the lolly.

Once dry we will add form by creating a shadowed edge working onto both wet and dry to achieve a blended edge.

I will then show you how to create the illusion of texture on the surface of the lolly by adding darker values onto dry and by lifting out colour to create softer, paler markings.

To complete the look we will remove the masking fluid and apply soft pastel colours to our sprinkles.

To find out more about what you will do in this project, take a quick look at the video:

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/d79f8e_b0740d785b314e869071b9edc816c6b2/720p/mp4/file.mp4

I hope you really enjoy this project and it gets you in the mood for summer (whatever the weather!).

Don’t forget to keep an eye out on new tutorials arriving over the summer break ~ hopefully I will be able to ‘Twister’ your arm to create a companion piece to this fab project!

Happy Painting!