New! | Johanna Excell Art

Blue whale

11 x 6,5 x 5 cm | Clay sculpture

190 €

The new member of the sleepy cetacean family, the blue whale - the largest animal ever to have existed on our planet.

He has been sculpted out of air dry clay, sanded for hours on end, painted with acrylics, brushed with soft pastel powder, and then sealed with a satin varnish.

Humpback whale mother and calf

30,5 x 40,6 cm | Watercolor and ink

470 €

My latest watercolor and dotwork project, a heartwarming illustration of a baby humpback with its mother. I used my space whale colors for this, and the result is this somewhat ethereal quality.

Humpback calves may weigh over a ton and measure 3,5 - 5 meters at birth, but they're pretty helpless. The calves will stay with their mothers for about a year, learning all the necessary skills through observation and mimicry. If danger is near, the mother will physically position herself between her calf and the threat, sometimes even lifting the calf out of the water.

Beautiful reference image by @jameszhu.photography on IG.

Hide and seek

30 x 50 cm | Mixed media

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Returning to acrylics. They used to be my main medium, and I'd use them to combine abstract backgrounds with realistic animals. However, I gradually developed an ick towards the medium and distanced myself from them, because I just didn't want to paint with plastics.

After a year or two of exploring other mediums, I thought I'd experiment a bit and see if I could work around my issues. I grabbed an old acrylic painting that I was never going to finish, and I started painting over it. My technique was to squeeze the paint directly onto the canvas or my flat silicone brush, and then use the brush to swipe-swipe and blend. This way I was left with no wastewater and pretty much nothing to clean up afterwards, which certainly helped me feel better about the medium.

The fish and the penguin I painted with water-mixable oils, and for the bubbles I used a combination of white gel pen, oils, and a fineliner.

Dream

30 x 30 cm | Acrylic on canvas

155 €

Another old canvas that has been painted over and given a new life. I used the same technique as for the previous penguin piece, but for the sperm whale I had to use a paintbrush.

The question of whether sperm whales dream is still a subject of scientific debate. Sperm whales, like other cetaceans, sleep with one half of the brain while the other half stays alert, but it's possible that they experience some form of dream-like state. Especially since REM has been observed in some whales.

Profundity of depth

20 x 30 cm | Oil and acrylic on linen

250 €

A whale shark rising from the deep blue. I used a reference photo by @oceanraysphotography and painted it with oils on this abstract background, painted with a combination of oils and metallic acrylics. The metallic stripes wrap around the edges, adding a nice touch to the linen canvas.

This piece can either be hung on the wall, or displayed on an easel (not included).