I have to be honest, I think scorpions are creepy. I’d rather paint another bird, but how could I leave out this notorious little guy from my series of Southwest Animals paintings? Not only are scorpions said to be 400 million years old, but there are 30 different species living in Arizona. With my kitty helper, Levi, I worked hard to get over the creep factor and paint a scorpion to be proud of.
Here’s how I painted a scorpion, start to finish!
Step 1: I painted the background a purple hue to be consistent with the 18 southwest animals I’ve already created. You can see all of the paintings here.
Then I loosely sketched the body shape of the scorpion with a lighter color.
Step 2: I filled in the shape of the scorpion and added more detail to it’s tail and lobster-like arms.
Step 3: Using bright orange and yellow/orange acrylic paint, I filled the body with these new fun colors.
Step 4: Using an almost white/yellow, I added highlights to the shell to make the scorpion appear more dimensional.
Step 5: During this step, I created the Julie Originals signature texture in the background. You can see this in the Roadrunner painting also.
I mixed the paint to create a dark red brown hue and added this shade to the scorpions back and tail.
Step 6: I continued to work on layering the background, while at the same time defining the edges of the scorpion.
Step 7: I wasn’t happy with the dark purple behind the scorpion, so I decided to change the whole background. I thought blue would be complementary to the orange scorpion, but help lighten up the vibe of the painting.
I added some white highlights to the scorpion’s shell. At this point, I felt like it was time to stop.
Since painting this scorpion, I think I am a little less creeped out and might consider hanging this one up at home…but maybe not in the bathroom!
Would you hang this scorpion in your house?
Matted prints for $25 and framed prints for $50. (s/h not included)
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