I wanted to do something special for my sister-in-law’s birthday this year. With her love of horses, it was easy to figure out what to paint for her. 🙂 Using a 5×7 die-cut wood panel I kept the color palette simple with white, blue, pink and black. I did  very light washes of color to establish where I wanted to the highlights to be.

Working more details into the painting, it’s starting to come together.

Final detail touches. I added some pink hues to add a sense of warmth.

I had this idea of doing a portrait of a Fairy Maiden. Like the portraits done by classic renaissance painters.

I started with some thumbnail drawings

I started the painting on 16×20 wood panel, using a color scheme of green, blue and purple. As you can see, details  have changed a bit from the initial sketches.

Eyes hold just as much expression as facial features. I always use a lot of detail when it comes to eyes and tend to make them big and luminous.

I’m not sure when I made the decision to keep her hair white. I kept the blue/gray shading more subtle to keep her hair soft looking.

This is about the half way mark. Next I’ll be working on her dress details and the jewel in her headband.

I’m working on a new painting for Halloween, inspired by the Pumpkin Queen painting I did a while back. This will be one of my larger paintings, a 15×30 canvas.

Here is the initial sketch. I paint directly on the canvas. Mostly it looks like a bunch of circles and squiggly lines. lol!

I paint over the unwanted lines, cleaning things up a bit, and add a little more detail before I start work on the background.

then I slowly work my way to the foreground.

I’m almost half way done with the painting now. I’ll probably take me a few more weeks to finish up as I tend to work on more than one painting at a time. 🙂

For my latest mermaid painting, I decided to try my hand at Ariel from Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Acrylic on 9″ x 12″ art board.

Here are some work-in-progress pictures I took.

Excerpt of a mostly true conversation with co-workers in the office (it’s mostly true because I was only half paying attention in the beginning)

Co-worker 1: …so if we combine an apple and an orange what would we get?

Co-worker 2: Red-Orange

Co-worker 1: No, that’s not what I’m asking

Co-worker 2: yes it is. You asked the question and I gave you the answer. I don’t know what you’re problem is

Me: …So, how does combining fruit names equal a color?

Co-worker 1: Thank you! Somebody understands

Me: An apple and an orange could be an Orple (pronounced “or –pull”)

Co-worker 1: what about the “G” in orange?

Me: I have no where to put the “g”

Co-worker 2: The “g” is silent

Me: Fine. It’s Orplge. The “G” is silent