Painting Loose & Luminous: My Nashville Zoo Meerkat Adventure
Sometimes the best paintings come from unexpected moments of inspiration. Join me as I transform a 2022 zoo photograph into a vibrant, atmospheric watercolor that celebrates both patience and spontaneity – and discover why your own photo references might be your secret weapon for competition entries.
The Story Behind This Painting
Hey there, fellow artists! You know that feeling when you're digging through old photos and suddenly one just speaks to you? That's exactly what happened with this little meerkat from my Nashville Zoo adventure back in 2022. I'm one of those people who snaps a bazillion pictures wherever I go (probably annoying to anyone with me, but hey – inspiration doesn't wait!), and today was finally the day this sweet face demanded to be painted.
Here's something important for my competition-minded friends: many watercolor contests require that you own the copyright to your reference photos. No royalty-free downloads, no purchased images – just your own photography. So every zoo visit, every nature walk, every family gathering becomes a treasure hunt for future painting gold!
Setting the Atmospheric Stage
I'm imagining this little guy on a blazing summer day, so I started by splashing quinacridone gold across my 12x16 Arches rough paper, then dropped in some rhodonite genuine (that gorgeous pink) for visual excitement. This isn't just pretty color play – I'm establishing the emotional temperature of the piece right from the start.
Pro tip: I've got my board propped at a slight angle so gravity becomes my painting partner, letting those colors flow and mingle naturally downward.
The Magic of No-Sketch Painting
Here's where it gets exciting (and maybe a little terrifying) – I'm going in completely without a preliminary sketch! My photo reference is right there for proportion checks, but I'm trusting the process and letting the watercolor lead the dance.
I dropped in some Palaiba Diamond Blue to suggest shadows. The unexpected color combinations – that teal blue against warm pinks – create something magical that feels both natural and fantastical.
Working Wet-into-Wet: The Foundation Magic
The key to this atmospheric approach is keeping everything beautifully wet and letting colors fuse organically. I'm not mixing on my palette or overworking areas – just dropping in color, maybe making a basic shape, then stepping back and letting the water work its magic.
Watch for those happy accidents! I splattered some quinacridone gold and created this incredible radiating pattern that I never could have planned. That's the joy of watercolor – sometimes the painting knows what it needs better than we do.
Creating Dimension with Lost and Found Edges
I'm deliberately blurring the side of my meerkat because that big beam of light calls for some serious lost and found edges. See how part of the cheek has no separation from the background? Our brains fill in that information when we give them enough visual clues elsewhere.
This is where patience becomes your superpower. While wet areas are drying, I'm lifting pigment from the face (my focal point) with a clean, thirsty brush, creating soft highlights that would be impossible to paint in directly.
The Second Layer: Where Control Meets Spontaneity
Once everything dried, I switched to my trusty size three synthetic Da Vinci Cosmo Top Spin brush (honestly one of my favorites for this scale of work) and began strengthening the focal points with Rockwell Canada Lapis Brown.
Here's my lifting technique secret: after laying down color, I let it sit for just a minute, then use a clean, dried brush to lift pigment and create those soft, natural-looking light areas. Try to do this too soon and it diffuses; wait too long and you're stuck with what you've got.
Negative Painting: The Art of What's Not There
On the sunlit right side, I'm painting negatively – outlining my meerkat with quinacridone gold, then bleeding it into that bright background. This creates shape definition while maintaining those gorgeous lost edges. It's like sculpting with light and shadow instead of carving hard lines.
Texture Without Overworking
For those distinctive meerkat stripes, I'm "dancing with my brush" – making little marks that follow the natural fur direction rather than rigid straight lines. The granulating pigments I love create natural rivulets when water is introduced, giving me authentic fur texture without having to manually paint every single hair.
Paper choice matters here: I'm working on Arches 140 lbs. rough paper, which lets me skim the surface lightly with my brush to create organic texture. If you handed me hot press paper right now, I'd honestly be way less confident – different surfaces completely change your game!
The Power of Restraint
Here's something crucial about artistic decision-making: knowing what to leave out is just as important as knowing what to include. That rock the meerkat's standing on? In my reference photo, it's much darker and more detailed. But painting it accurately would pull attention down to the bottom of the composition – exactly where I don't want it.
Same with the tail tip, which gets darker in reality. I chose to let it fade into the background because sometimes less detail creates more impact.
Problem-Solving in Real Time
Watercolor has this reputation for being unforgiving, but here's the truth: I made that back leg too thick, grabbed my stiff filbert brush, and lifted right off what I didn't want. The "you can't fix watercolor mistakes" myth needs to die – you absolutely can, if you know your pigments and work with their lifting properties.
Technical Toolkit for This Painting
Brushes that made the difference:
Size 8 Silver Black Velvet round (my absolute favorite and workhorse brush)
Size 3 synthetic Da Vinci Cosmo Top Spin
Size 1 liner for final details
Size 2 quill brush for early washes
Color magic combination: Quinacridone gold, rhodonite genuine, Palaiba diamond blue, Rockwell Canada Lapis Brown, Schminke Tundra Orange – colors that created endless mixing possibilities
Why Your Own Photos Are Creative Gold
This painting started as a forgotten digital file and became something I'm genuinely excited about. Your phone is full of potential masterpieces just waiting for the right moment. That "mediocre" snapshot from your last vacation might be the perfect reference for your next competition entry or gallery piece.
Plus, there's something deeply satisfying about the full creative circle – from capturing the moment to interpreting it through paint.
Your Turn to Explore
I'm curious about your own photo archives – what forgotten gems are hiding in there? And here's a fun question: if you had to paint an animal you'd never see in your backyard, what would it be and why?
The beauty of this atmospheric approach is that it works for any subject. Focus on temperature, value, and shapes rather than getting caught up in perfect details. Remember, I could paint this entire meerkat in a single color and it would still read correctly if I got those fundamental elements right.
Challenge for this week: Dig through your photo collection and find one image that makes you feel something. Don't overthink the "perfect" reference – sometimes the most ordinary moments make the most extraordinary paintings.
Keep experimenting, keep those cameras ready, and remember – every photo you take is a potential painting waiting to happen!
Happy painting, friends! 🎨