Firefly Garden Faerie – a watercolor+mixed media painting and workshop

Firefly Garden Fairy by Ida Andersen Lang – Watercolor and Mixed Media on Watercolor Paper -2023

A DREAM OF GARDENS AND FIREFLIES

Greetings my dear Creative Friends. Summer time is peaking here in Denmark in july and inspired from the lush greens all around, I had an amazing time, creating this dreamy garden fairy. I love gardens and daydreaming, and so, it was such a delight to sit with this painting, letting imagination unfold, as I slowly and mindfully enjoyed this session.

When I paint, often I do not know at all what the painting will end up being about, and as I was working on this one, it was like Spirit of Firefly was gently coming to me, wanting to play. And so, I experimented a lot in this one, with how I could ease into the energy of fireflies and paint them.

It was such a joy adding these fireflies in three shades of green, ranging from light green over bright shining yellow-green and a high value almost white green in the center. As I was in this process, it was almost like be surrounded with fireflies, right there in the painting process. So much fun.

I painted this painting as the monthly painting workshop for august in Art Soul Living, my online art school. All the lessons i create for Art Soul Living is added in the evergreen library of courses in Art Soul Living too and – a true treasure trove of art lessons.

THE ART PROCESS

I started the creative process by gently drawing this dreamy fairy in graphite on my watercolor paper. Then I added very expressive layers of watercolor in classical techniques like fading, wet on dry and wet on wet watercolor. I added a few layers like that, with inbetween drying time. After the painting had thoroughly dried, I proceeded to developing in mixed media (mixed media basically means using two or more different media in one piece of art) in layers of soft pastels and pan pastels, and then finally adding fine details in colored pencil. Topping off with af few details in Posca Pens too.

The full process is documented and explained in the Firefly Garden Fairy Video Workshop (available in Art Soul Living).

FINE ART PRINTS

I also added this dreamy firefly fairy in my RedBubble fine art print shop, on a range of different beautiful items like fine art prints, postcards and totebags. You can take a look at the full Firefly Garden Fairy Collection here and be inspired.

ART MATERIALS I USED FOR THE FIREFLY GARDEN FAIRY

In the image and  art materials video below, you can see the full range of art materials I used in this watercolor + mixed media painting.

All is explained and shown in detail in the Firefly Garden Fairy Video Workshop (available in Art Soul Living).

In the comments below, let´s talk art…

• What does summertime inspire you to paint and draw?
• What are your experiences with mixing and painting greens?
• Have you ever seen fireflies? If so, feel free to muse …