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.