Moving...

I've decided that Blogger just isn't working for me, so I'm moving my gallery to another platform.

My new address is: http://rachelscanvas.wordpress.com/.

I'll post a few of my old works, but mostly will use the new site for new things I paint, so I'll leave this site up so that people can see my old stuff. This will be my last post here, though, so - hasta la vista on my new site!

Winter Coats

I was wondering the other day where the idea for this one came from...and I couldn't remember. I guess I must have thought it up one night when feeding my son and been really excited about it. I'm not sure why, but it was fun to paint!

I don't have any idea of the story behind this...maybe someone creative can come up with something. :) It reminds me of the tale of Snow White and Rose Red and the bear that they take care of that turns out to be a handsome prince. I DID kind of try to give the wolf a human kind of air...

I redid the dress several times, as I wasn't satisfied with it.

I also couldn't figure out how to paint the darned wolf fur. I did it over and over a million times until I came up with something that worked. I looked at a few tutorials for some ideas on how to do it, but in the end I had to work out my own way.

I feel I am getting much better at composition! This one has a nice sidways V format, what with the figures and the clouds in the background.

Click here for a better, cleaner, non-messed-up version.

King Davenport

This image took me a long time to finish because of all the little details. I studied a TON of royal portraits, both painted and photographed alike for much of the inspiration. Probably the most obvious influences are Ingres portrait of Napoleon and Holbein the Younger's portrait of King Henry VIII.

I like red. A lot. Maybe you can tell?

Learned more about painting gold and various textile textures.

The character is one of my own, from my first book. Basically he wouldn't have ever been king except that the real king was in self-imposed exile. King Davenport (above portrait...) took his place for many years. He ends up being a general in the war to recapture his lost kingdom, which has been taken over by the enemies. He's a good guy.

Blogger chewed this one up and spit it out again, so click for the REAL image.

The Fire Necklace

I don't know why I titled this the way I did... I couldn't think of anything I liked so I decided to come up with something cheesy.

Anyway, as always with me, fun with light and color!

This is my first painting since having my son, and boy, have I missed painting!

And yes, she is holding a glowing necklace.

Announcing Our New Baby!

City Light

Sketch inspired by the scene out our back balcony.

Tree of Life

Fun one day sketch playing with shape and light.

It's a Boy!

As in, for once I painted a boy!

In some ways it's a portrait of my son, but I feel kind of funny claiming that it actually is, since I didn't start out to paint him and I only used a reference photo of him once I decided it kind of looked like him. I actually painted this picture because I wanted a chance to paint a nose. Weird, I know.

In any case, this went through heavy changes from the original stages, but I quite like where it went. I started out with very rosy colors and dark blues and then it changed to this more or less monochromatic piece.

My son was born in the wintertime, so, once I decided this kind of looked like him, making it a sort of winter scene seemed a great way to make the portrait a little more interesting. It was my first time painting smoke, which took some figuring out, but I'm happy with the result.

Moonwings

This was a fun exercise. I don't know that there is all that much more to say about it, but I had fun playing with the lighting as well as the composition. I like glowing things. 

That Was A Bad Apple

From Rachel's Canvas

The idea for this one came to me as I was actually already started on another piece, but it was striking enough that I abandoned that one and worked on this one (something that is extremely uncommon for me to do.) I couldn't figure out the pose I wanted her in at first, but after a day or so of thinking, I came up with this.

It's Snow White, obviously. My first ideas for poses were closer-up and perhaps more unconventional, but this is what I felt worked in the end. I wanted from the beginning for the image to be kind of symbolic and layered in meaning, but it became more so the more I worked on it. The apple is kind of leaking its color (poison?) all over, which happened kind of by accident - it started with a slightly fuzzy mark around the apple and then grew into the huge stain on the robe, which I think looks kind of freaky and cool at the same time. The red of the apple and her lips are the only real color in the piece, so they really stand out and catch your attention. The plants around the pyre are Deadly Nightshade, symbolic, clearly, of death, and the lone lily growing up beside it a kind of image of hope of ressurection that is to come...

It would be easy to see Christian themes in this one. I had them in mind myself and even had, in one version of the image, a reference to a Bible verse engraved on the tomb, but I took it off because it looked too busy, in the end. It was Ephesians 5:14, if you're curious. I still feel kind of bad about the fact that there is nothing engraved on the pyre - I mean, it has that potential that's being wasted maybe...any ideas of what should be there???

The color lover in me really wanted to splash more color onto this, especially at the end, but I held out...I really think the contrast is worth the lack of color and since it IS a painting of Snow WHITE, it seems appropriate.

**Edit: if you want to zoom in, click the image, which will take you to the Picasa image. There is a little magnifying glass in the upper right. Click on it to zoom in as you wish.

Elerin: Personal Character

Click for better detail.

This character is from a book of which I have only written fragments, but basically the premise centers around a kingdom where some people have discovered a way to transform into animals at will. Elerin is another princess, but since she is one of the characters who can transform I thought it would be fun to paint her kind of half transformed...I guess to show that she can.

This portrait took longer than the last one I did, mostly because of the 3/4 view which can make things less straight forward than dead center.

Emma: personal character

Here was a "quickie" - it took me maybe 5-6 hours total and was done all in one day. That's quite enough staring at a screen for one day, but I thought I would post it and then perhaps take a break.

Again, Blogger has effectively destroyed the finer parts of this image. So click to see it like it really should look.

She is a character from one of my books. Her name is Emma and she eventually becomes queen at the end of the book. Unfortunately, there is lots of nasty stuff on the way to that moment, which is why I decided to paint her looking a bit sad.

I like the colors, but like I said before, red is my favorite color, so I'm probably really biased. Still, I like the way her face kind of grows out of the red. This was also my first time painting black hair, so be kind. In the end I included lots of red reflections to give me something to work with. This is a little more stylized than I generally work, but I like the way it turned out.

At My Window Seat

First off, a blogger I read mentioned that Blogger does yucky things with pictures you upload. I am noticing this now. If you click on the image, you get the nice crisp version, so do that please. This condensed thing looks nowhere near as good as it should. You can also see it in my gallery at DeviantArt.

This one took many, many hours. I worked so hard on so many different aspects of this (face, hands, hair, objects in room, etc.) that I'm afraid that one of its major weaknesses is that there are too many focal points. However, I am proud of my work and consider it a stepping stone onto better things....

I'm not really sure where the idea for this came from, but I do remember that the original idea centered around the light. I knew I wanted a really bright light source, one that would force me to think about shading a face in a way that didn't depend so heavily on dark shadows. I was torn at one point between lowering the amount of light coming from the window in order to better feature what she might be looking at (which I also debated for some time) but decided against it, since the light was really the main subject of this one and I wanted to keep it that way.

Here's a lesson I learned with this one: images in the mirror are harder to paint than they appear.

The girl has a kind of harlequin vibe, which was kind of unplanned in the beginning, but which I came to like. It all started when I was doing her makeup and "accidentally" did what I consider to be my best mouth yet. (Zoom in close, please!) Then I continued the look as best I could throughout the rest of her look.

I guess the last thing I should say about this is that it took me the longest time to finally settle on what she should be looking at. I originally thought bird, since I wanted the natural things visible outside the window (the few they are) to contrast with the crowded, overworked, overstuffed, overdressed, fusty interior. But then I couldn't figure out why a bird would be looking in a window. Or how. Since birds don't hover.

So then I thought fairy. But that just didn't go with the theme, and when I think fairy, I think bright thing...and that would require lowering the light of the window so that such a fairy would actually glow, and I wasn't willing to do that.

And then it hit me: HUMMINGBIRDS HOVER. And they are BIRDS. Problem solved.
A close up that kind of solves some focus problems (but Blogger will ruin the image, so please, again, zoom in.)

Expecting

I painted this one a little differently than the others I've done so far. I tried a different "bottom up" approach after watching some video of a few artists I really like paint and I wanted to see if I could use some of the techniques I saw them use. I am quite proud of this one...I think it shows how much progress I've made in terms of...well, a lot of things! Execution, technique, color, composition, anatomy, and just getting better at using Photoshop. Compare this image with a painting I did back in the Early Days of this blog, for instance, and hopefully you'll agree.

I wasn't sure whether to include the earring, as I liked the face without it too, but I do like how it turned out in the end.

The overall composition of the thing came about quite by accident. I find that a great number of good things happen in my art that way: by accident. I guess Bob Ross was right about "happy accidents."

I actually ended up entering this one in an art contest...we'll see what happens with that!

As for an "explanation" of the image (my husband always wants one!), I guess I'd say that I was trying to portray the beauty of a pregnant woman. I'm currently pregnant, and I'm not saying this is how I look (ha!) but I see it in others and wanted to convey the feeling. I like how the skin turned out all transluscent. I thought at first that it looked kind of dead, but I think now that it really fits in with the other glowing things around her, kind of helps her to glow too.

There is also a question of whether she is standing up against a tapestry or lying down on a rug. I guess that's up for you to decide...the light might tell you one thing while the position of the earring might tell you another. If she is lying down, then she is probably taking a well-deserved nap.

And a close up of the face...since I'm so inclined.

Spring

This was the first time I'd really tackled drawing a child, but I was excited for the challenge: especially the features that I was pretty sure would be quite different from an adult's: eyes, hands, etc. I had to look at a lot of references (also for the large butterfly) but didn't copy from any one picture very much. 

I wanted to use purple, as I haven't done that much at all before now either. I'm kind of proud of how the eyes turned out...I think the look quite good up close...even better than they do far away.

What else is there to say about this? I think it's obvious why it's a Spring (and/or Summer!) picture...butterflies, meadow, flower...just beautiful weather!

I guess this concludes my seasons portraits series...I'll have to think of something else to work on. (No fear, I have about a billion ideas of things I want to try...)

DeviantArt Page

I set up a DeviantArt account today. I guess the only reasons you might be interested in this piece of news is:

*in case you've wanted to buy a print of something I've painted. Apparently it's pretty user friendly to do it through them
*to read a bit more detail about some of my works
*to leave me comment etc. about my painting
*to help make me FAMOUS! (just kidding about this last one.)

Check it out if you're interested. The link is on the sidebar up top on the left.

Winter

Here's winter! I like how the lighting turned out on this one. I also tried out some new rendering techniques for fabrics and I like the results, I think. Click on the picture for larger, although you won't be able to see all of the details because of the compression of the image required for posting images to blogger. I've given you a close up of the girl that is at more or less full resolution, although all details can't be preserved in a .jpeg.

I was frustrated at the end because I couldn't get my normal watermark to work. Grrrr....

Spring will come soon...

Autumn

Well, I've now done two out of the four seasons! This was my first try at a kind of atmospheric nature backdrop and it took a lot of thinking it through and failed attempts before I arrived at this. Originally I had envisioned more of a saturated look with bright oranges and reds but I ended up with this more toned down peachy thing, which is interesting even if it's not exactly what I had in mind in the beginning. Although I haven't done close ups in a while, I'm including one of the face of the girl here. I had originally thought freckles, but when I put them on they didn't look quite right, so I left them off. I also wanted to let you see the necklace, which is really hard to pick out on the big version.

And yes, I have seen the previews for Brave.

Summer

I thought initially that I would do one of these for each season. We'll see if I actually follow through!

Anyway, this one was quite educational for me as I really set myself to re-render everything until it was just the way I wanted it. I think the colors turned out quite nice too. Enjoy.

Elephant Circus

I wanted to paint something that maybe someday, when I get my act together, I will be able to make a print of and hang on one of my children's walls. I tried to think of what my son loved, and remembered how he enjoyed being at the circus. That inspired this drawing.

Evil Monarch Alert

Trying out some new painting techniques and styles. I'm not very good at drawing cartoony-like, so this was a shot at that.

The Traveler

I'm not sure how long this took. I worked on it for a few hours for a few days. Maybe 10 hours in all? Anyway, now that I'm done, it makes me think of Picasso's Mother and Child, you know, the one that he cut the dad out of because he didn't like the composition? No? Maybe I was the only kid that read the Childcraft books over and over. I couldn't think of WHY it made me think of that painting. I thought it might be the sea in the background or something. Now I remember why: this image looks pretty darned interesting cut up into pieces. Maybe I'll post some examples in a bit.

In any case, I called it The Traveler because in the beginning, she was looking out over the sea wearing her traveling cape. But then I wanted to do a dress instead. I like the look of the overall thing: not like I'm trying to be super realistic but more stylistic. I like that it has a clean carnival feel to it. I also like the blue and orange together.

This one I did completely from my imagination, except for consulting a few pictures on what pearls look like and what the heck an eye from the side looks like. Otherwise, I used no references. Also, she was facing the other way for most of production but I forgot to switch her back before getting the final image ready. Oh well, she looks fine looking out this way as well.

Eve

It probably seems like I'm churning 'em out now after my long silence. I find that if I do anything I often do a lot of it, and I've been doing a lot of painting recently. This one took me just a few days. I learned a few things about faces doing this and want another shot at painting skin soon. Stay tuned for that.

I am also kind of fascinated with the Bible figure Eve right now. There might be more pictures of her in the future.

Also, for some reason, whenever I've pictured Eve, it's always been a dark haired gal that shows up in my mind. Don't know why that is or if others think of her the same way, but the idea came to me to paint a ginger complected Eve. The idea seemed almost sacrilegious when I first thought of it and I'm really not sure why. In any case, I decided that I could paint her any way I wanted, given that she didn't leave behind any Poloroids of her actual face.

Creation: Lord of Heaven and of Earth

You probably were beginning to think I would never post again, but I have, at last, finished the project I have been working on for a bit. Although I did put many hours into this, the length of time that has elapsed between this post and the last does not reflect the actual duration of the work.

I think that this is the final version. I may go back and change things as I'm not totally happy with some parts. I chose the title because I wanted this picture to show the grandeur of the Savior's power as creator of the universe and our world. I also originally wanted to take a few liberties with the costume and maybe make it more dressy than it actually came out. In the end it's pretty simple but I hope it still has somewhat of a majestic feel to it.

Here are some WIPs of earlier stages.

Not much changed between this last one and the "final" one...mostly just color and light adjustment that I'm not 100% positive I'm completely happy with. Oh, and, of course, the obligatory lens flare. I'll sleep on it.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently...

...I actually am working on something, but it's coming along rather slowly, mostly because it requires a great deal of thought as to the design of everything as well as worrying about the execution of the shapes, colors, etc. I hope to have it finished and posted soon! Don't give up on me!

Cyclist

For my husband for Valentine's Day. This was what he asked me to paint. Well, in general. I provided the details.

Thanks to Contador who provided the inspiration for the big teeth and the bushy eyebrows that got dropped somewhere along development.

Portrait of my son

Here is a portrait I did of my son. I worked extensively from a photograph which has its ups and downs. The up is that you can keep checking details to be sure things are right. The down is that you can keep checking details to be sure things are right and you drive yourself crazy not painting but copying. Yuck.

Anyway, this took a couple of days (6 hours total maybe?). Obviously there are still issues with it, but it's another attempt at a more traditional media look.

This was (is) part of my Valentine's Day gift to my husband. Happy Valentine's Day, sweetie! 

From There to Here, From Here to There

Original concept sketch.

Color palatte chosen.

Main colors blocked in.

Initial face shadow work.

More skin and face work.

Face takes another direction. Looks weird.

Face looks different again.

Feature refinement.

Initial clothes work. Had a steampunk idea initially and started to work on that.

Worked on land in distance.

Sea work.

Sky added.

Clothes going in a different direction now. Dumped the edgy look idea.

Fun with satin! YAY!

Further lace work.

Hair.

Hummingbirds. I only drew 5 of them and then copied and changed their size and blend mode. Yay for Photoshop!

Changed the color balance on the background.

Final touches.

Didn't like the composition so I cropped it. Voila! Finished!