Catching some air

The first image shows how far I took things before I pulled out the airbrush. That's right, I said airbrush. And when I say "pulled out" I actually mean spending an hour or so looking for the damn thing, and another two hours cleaning it. It's been a few years.

I used the airbrush to blush in that soft red on the wings, and to soften the cloudy sky.

Here's a neat trick from my commercial illustration days. Instead of using frisket, I made xerox copies of the wings on 11 x 17 paper. I then cut the wings out of the xeroxes and placed the paper over the painting as a mask. This goes much faster than cutting frisket, and there's less chances of cutting too deep. It also gives a softer and less artificial edge than frisket.