Introducing my wife, Monica’s first blog about her Wildlife and Pet Portraits!
Koala-Nite, Nite
My husband, Gregg Cestaro, is a fantastic photographer and has taken numerous photos for me to use as references. We were at the San Diego zoo where my family heard me say-take a pic!- about a zillion times. 300 some pics later, I had lots to work from. This is one such piece. Koalas are most everyone’s live teddy bear. This one was sleeping in the tree and I thought it would be a good piece to do. I used watercolor paper and did a wash with watercolor pencil then used gesso as an underpainting. For the koala I used watercolor pencil and acrylic. The tree and leaves are watercolor pencil, color pencil, acrylic and conti. Using short strokes I layered the color on the fur to make it look fluffy.
