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.