Halloween Potion
- Kaaren Poole
- Sep 29
- 5 min read
After much work and much worry, my Halloween piece is finished!
The whole time I was working on this painting, I was both looking forward to and dreading painting the potion itself. I knew it would be difficult, but I thought it I could pull if off it would be really satisfying.
So let's see how it went! Here’s where I left off the last time I worked on it:
I knew I’d need to finish everything behind the cauldron—the rest of the background, and crow, the mice, and at least the inside back of the cauldron itself before I could paint the potion. To get started, I decided to paint the cauldron as I had an approach in mind.
Working with Burnt Sienna, then Burnt Umber, and finally Raw Umber, I dabbed random strokes with a flat brush, building up what I hoped would look like old, patina’d bronze. And when I had that dark enough, I dabbed in some bluish green to imitate oxidation on the metal. It turned out pretty well, though you can barely see it in the finished piece because that area is in such deep shadow.
Finishing the Background
It was evident that the owls were too bright, so I pushed their shadow sides back with washes of Prussian Blue and Payne’s Grey.
The rest of the background needed a lot more work. I wanted the viewer to feel she was approaching the scene through a thick wood, so surely there would need to be a lot more trees in the background.
I added two rows of distant trees—short ones in the distance, then medium ones a little closer. I worked them all with a liner brush and Burnt Umber. Perhaps surprisingly, it was relaxing to just paint all those little branches. I did, though, need to be careful about crossing in front of the bats: for instance, the branch of a far tree couldn’t cross in front of a bat that was nearer.
You’ll notice how much darker the band of brighter color in the sky now is, especially towards the sides. But before I darkened it. I brought the pale yellow down over the tips of the grasses so that their edges would be less distinct and I brightened its center with orange. Then I darkened the sides by adding thin washes of Burnt Umber, Payne’s Grey, Prussian Blue, and even dark green.
I added lots of darker grass strands, then deepened them and the front of the cauldron with washes of those same dark colors I just used in the sky.
Starting the Halloween Potion
For the potion, I knew I wanted yellowish green because I thought it would be creepy. It was still too early in the process to finish the potion, but at least I could begin it to get an idea what it would look like.
The potion began as a dull blue-grey, which I'd initially created with washes of Payne’s Grey and Raw Umber. I dampened the area, then brushed white gesso and yellow green paint randomly over the surface. Although I’d been apprehensive about how to paint the potion, this, I thought, was a good start!
But before I could continue, I needed to…
Finish the Crow and Mice
And that’s a big subject in itself. But suffice it to say that I did finish them. The mice were fairly straightforward, as the colors of their coats went a long way to make it clear they were mice. Also, i knew they wouldn’t show much through the steam that I was planning, so I paid more attention to the crow.
After all the previous layers (Payne’s Grey, Prussian Blue, and Burnt Umber) on him, attempting to build form with value, I now only worked with black. It was tricky to get him dark enough while still retaining some hints of 3D form. A silhouette was something I wanted to avoid, and I think it worked out pretty well.
Back to the Potion and Finishing Touches
Now I could return to the Halloween potion. Yay!
I painted several bubbles on its surface, then added steam, steam, and more steam. To paint the it, I dampened the surface first then, using a round brush, painted rising squiggly strokes with gesso (for white) and yellow green. The dampened surface blurred the paint strokes nicely. Wow! I really liked the potion!
For finishing touches, I added the large branches to deepen the scene.
Highlights of beige lit the branches circling the moon while highlights of white lit the undersides of the branches over the potion. I added more stars and the dark grasses in front of the cauldron.
At the very end, I darkened the four corners of the piece with washes of Payne’s Grey and Dioxazine Purple. I often favor this vignette look. Oh, and I added a bit of orange to the moon!
The Bottom Line
This was a very challenging piece because of the light effects, but I’m pretty happy with the result.
I’d intended this design for Redbubble and was eager to see how it would look on some of my favorite products. I liked the tote bags, which was good because those were what I had most in mind for this design. This design also looked good on several of the other products. But I was disappointed in the way they fit onto zipper pouches, one of my favorite Redbubble offerings.
In the end, I learned a lot by working on this piece.
As for the painting itself, I had lots of practice with portraying light effects and layering washes.
As for the Redbubble experience, I was reminded that although the image of one’s artwork—or maybe more specifically, the placement of key subjects in the overall piece—is fixed, the printable areas of the different Redbubble surfaces varies. This means that a design will likely work better on some products than others. I have some ideas about how to approach this problem, but I haven’t given them enough thought yet to form them precisely…
P.S. If you’re interested, you can click on the image to see this design (and all the others) in my Redbubble shop.
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