Spirited Away Preview

Spirited Away - Enchanted Visions Preview

Hello all, 

I know it has been a long time since you last saw my painting Spirited Away (from the Slightly Eccentric Tutorials). I wanted to let you all know that I finally finished the painting and that I'm finally pleased with it (don't quote me on it-- leave me alone with it, I'll probably fix something else)! I changed a LOT since you all last saw it and definitely pushed myself out of my comfort zone. I am used to painting washes in light colors and stopping after two or three because I'm always afraid to ruin the piece! In this case, even the title tells you that the painting will be extra other-worldly and different. So this time I pushed the colors to make everything-- especially the fae come to life!

Unfortunately during this time I didn't take very many pictures. I just kept painting, thinking I'd be done soon, only making small changes and could photograph afterwards! So the rest of the tutorial I'm sad to say will be jump pretty far from idea to idea, but I'll put it together for you all and explain as best I can what I might have been thinking (or not thinking!).

The painting will be released as soon as my computer comes back from "the shop."(once the piece is scanned in, I'll actually stop making changes to it!) (and to explain-- I am writing on my laptop right now, but I also have a PC which handles all my major photoshop, printing, uploading and downloading needs-- the PC is the one in the shop, and the laptop isn't powerful enough to do all the things my PC can take care of.)

In the mean time, check out my website and see all the changes being made and all the new products released! I've been adding whole new sections on a weekly basis! So there's always something new and fun times to be had over there!

To view the tutorial of "Spirited Away" -click here-

Spirited Away: A Slightly Eccentric Tutorial - Part 2

This is part 2 from the other day's painting tutorial...


Part 1: Spirited Away: A Slightly Eccentric Tutorial

Here, I started doing some dark strands and shadows in her hair with a tiny round brush. Mostly a mix of Yarka browns. 


I also started worrying about the orb the little sprite was offering the maiden. I outlined it with Yarka yellow but kept the center and the wisps around it the white of the paper.


It was right about here that I started getting distracted by texts from my good friend, Alexandra and started skipping records of each step... You can blame her. =)

First off, I began darkening the shadows of her skin, clothing, etc. I also began swooshing lots and lots of bright colors wherever I wanted. 


I did a bit of skin tone and cloth detail on the little sprite, and the swooshing around the offered orb.


Right here is where I was deciding what color to paint around one side of the orb when the sound of the alert from my phone that Alexandra had texted again made me jerk out of my weird state of concentration and spill green in the wrong place! 


I had a split moment of panic and urge to murder. Fortunately for Alex's life, the weird green splotch turned out to blend in nicely with the already wet reddish pant and I texted Alex to inform her that she's awesome and should startle me more often. 
So she texted back "RAWWWRRR!!!" --didn't work the second time.

Sorry about the color inconsistencies! I don't scan each step because it takes me wayyyy longer, instead I take pictures in whatever light presents itself to me at the time.


Anyways, I just love adding swooshes! Can you tell it my favorite thing? I do a lot of wet-into-wet washes in this stage and I do what Alexandra calls "make backgrounds of doom"- which basically means epically detailed backgrounds... No actual doom involved. These "backgrounds of doom" require lots of tiny brushstrokes of many different colors. In this case I literally swiped a wet brush across my entire palette and used whatever color came out of it. I find this much better than going with pure colors because of the fun subtleties and interesting shades you can get.


I also paint the birds after asking Alexandra what color they should be (we miraculously text "Greenish" at the same time). And apparently Alex now thinks she co-painted this...

And here's where texting with Alex really got me distracted from progress shots! (Blame her!) As you can see, I painted in a ton more "doom," elaborating what was already laid down. The butterflies were done in a monarch-like orange (Yarka) and then accented with white gel pen (white gel pen rules). The figure was much more heavily shaded and shadowed and brought to life, and so were her clothes.


The rest of it went on as I grew less and less able to paint due to the insane cold I had. Plus, I had a crazy headache that made it really hard to continue between the sneezing and the coughing and the sniffling and the vision was getting to be all but hazy.


So here's the stopping point where I finally I left it as "Done." In my sick state, I really thought it was done. (Again, the colors are so far from the original painting's, taken with this camera in this awful light-- so the colors will change quite a bit from this monstrosity to the actual print.) Unfortunately, I put this up at my desk for a few days and after having the chance to really look at it from far away, I realize that I have to squint at it... I now see in my back-to-normal-not-sick-anymore-state that the colors are all about the same value, and since there's not enough contrast: the fairie and the painting disappear within itself. 


SO!: This means, more painting of the non-sneezing variety. I know that some of you are thinking I'm just a crazy artist and am being super anal about my work. You're right. But I'm still going to work on it to make it right in my eyes. 


Now hopefully some of you see why artists have the reputation that they do. =D


Next week classes start, so I will try super super hard to finish it before then!! I promise to try my best!


Stay tuned.......

Spirited Away: A Slightly Eccentric Tutorial

First off, this isn't exactly a tutorial. It's way too scatterbrained for that, especially since I forgot I was suppose to be taking pictures of each step halfway through.... But I would like to show you my experience of pushing my skills into something very different for me.


I wrote a poem earlier that explains the sort of mood I was in yesterday and am usually in while I try to create these fantastical paintings. My brain wants to draw EVERYTHING and I realistically have to settle on only a few ideas. You can view the poem I wrote -here-


This painting was a challenge piece for me because I wanted to create the whole thing in ONE DAY. I mostly succeeded.

So this is the inked sketch that turned up after my muse and my brain settled down, well, settled down a little...


I kept quite a bit of the pencil lines in so that I could have something a bit more raw than my usual clean, crisp black lines.


The hair I left mainly to make up as I went along, as well as much of the background. I have to challenge myself to use brushstrokes, rather than rely on what I have laid out for myself. I really wanted to get the creativity flowing for this one, and push myself out of comfort.


I planned to make swirls and swooshes in the background, inspired by the ones I've seen in Stephanie Pui-Mun Law's paintings. My only other plan for this piece was to make it Bright! and to use very vibrant colors like sunshine.


I use Arches Hot Press Watercolor Paper, mechanical pencil, and Micron pens, usually the finest point: 0.005.

Next I painted in some background with yellows on top surrounding the figure, and some reds and purples on the bottom.


I use mainly Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors, and also Yarka Watercolors. I'm not sure if one is "allowed" to mix brands, but I always have, so I don't see any reason to stop now. The brushes are an assortment of mostly Princeton rounds.


The yellows were lemon yellow and cadmium yellow from the Yarka set. This is mainly because I was too lazy to get the Daniel Smith yellows out. 


For the bottom reds and purples, I used DS alizarin crimson, my favorite, and DS carbazole violet.


I did the first wash the same way I usually do washes. While I was taking Watercolor Classes, this seemed to be a technique that confused most students. First I wet the entire paper with clear water and a big flat brush, nice and wet! Then I splatter some colors around the page, taking care to pull the color as I go away from the figure or other parts I may not want to be bright yellow or the like. You can use more clear water to pull and lift the colors away from the central figure. This way you create a sort of glow around the figure that is especially nice for fantasy art. You have to work fast of course! Otherwise, you're left with weird splotches that you have to figure out what to do with... Once you're done and waiting for paint to dry, you can use the salt effects or rubbing alcohol for some fun starbursts and bubbles. Otherwise, I use a hair dryer, full intensity at this time. =)

Next, I create some swooshes...


I try and stay with my sun-colored plan, but I need a bit of contrast and variation. Since purple is the complement of yellow, I put that down with a little extra red, to make more of a red-violet and stick with the bright theme.


The technique here is to lay down a brushstroke, and then with clean water lay on down directly beside it so there's no hard edges, but so that the color bleeds over. I did create a couple of hard edges, but those are intended. 


(sorry about the weird inconsistencies with color by the way! This was taken under the light of my art lamp which gives off weird shadows and so all of these pictures have had to be adjusted to show them off best.)

Now it's time for the figure. I can always go back to add more swooshing and background later.


I first put in the red-violet shadows, for warmth, then for contrast I used DS ultramarine blue in the cooler areas of the figure, to really bring it to life.


I added in the bright red ribbon, just because I was feeling gutsy. I painted some soft greenish lines coming from the tips of the fingers of her left hand, and I also did some stokes of yellow around the orb the little sprite is offering. 


The above picture also clearly shows the first wash step where I pulled color away from the fairy, but let it slide over the little sprite, since she is not the main focus. 

Wow, the camera really distorts some of these colors from picture to picture... sorry!!


Anyways, here I started in on her outfit and wings. The dress was still wet when I took this picture, that why it's shiny. 


For the dress, I started with yellows as a base color and then used oranges from my Yarkas and watered down DS cadmium red. I also added some DS ultramarine blue and the same red-violet in the folds.


For the pants, I used a lot of this watered down blueish-green color left over on my pallet that I have no idea what colors formed it... That's partly the joy of watercolors over other mediums: colors you painted with months ago can still be used, just add water! More DS ultramarine was used in the shadows as well. I also poured a lot of watered down yellows over the pants then as it was still wet, then I mopped it up. This was done so that I could go for a bit of a glow and to give them a worn look, rather than leaving them crisp white. This way I could also leave the whites for the brightest parts around the orb, wings, etc. 


For the wings, i spent a lot of time adding small amounts of brush strokes, then pressing a paper towel down so they didn't come off as too harsh. I wanted to create the stained glass dragon-fly winged look that the great Stephanie Law is so good at. 

This next picture is a tad blurry-- I'm sorry! I didn't know at the time! 


Anyways, I painted in some of her hair with yarka yellows and watered down browns. 


For the trailing smoky looking bits flowing from her hands, I first painted these with clear water, then spattered in some greens, reds, oranges, whatever I felt like and let them all intermingle as I literally turned my paper all angles, and voila!: I have some really interesting wet-into-wet effects in a contained part of my painting.


That is about as much as I care to fit into one blog entry. More steps will come later as I did finish the piece in one day (yesterday), but looking at it today, I might want to add in a few more touch-ups before I scan it in.


Stay tuned!!

Spirited Away in a Day of Painting

I decided for some silly reason to challenge myself today while I'm really sick... The challenge was for me to create a painting start to finish in one day. Somehow, the idea poured out of my pencil onto my watercolor paper and became exactly as I envisioned it start to finish. The piece was a challenge because of my cold, but I think that added to the spontaneity and charm of the piece. *cough*


I would like to start doing the One Day Method for all my paintings in the future... But sometimes, there's just no time. I know if I had stopped part way through then it would have probably taken a few weeks for me to get back to it... We'll see how it goes, it's a new year.


The piece is named "Spirited Away" for the Enchanted Visions Project. If you haven't checked out their site, do it now!! I was trying to think of a name for the piece, when I remembered the EV title that I thought I would never be able to imagine a painting for, it fit perfectly. I couldn't possibly change it.


I have been greatly inspired by the works of Stephanie Pui-Mun Law and this piece is about as close as I can get to her breathtaking works. I received her art book of the Minor Arcana for my birthday, and have been pouring over her brushstrokes, imagination and style. I hoped to create something half as beautiful as her pieces.


The result is very lovely, if I can say that about my own work. I am far too exhausted and needing sleep to scan the finished product right now, but I will try very hard to get to it tomorrow so you all can see the finished piece! I'm going to need a lot of hot tea and rest now....

New Enchanted Visions

Hey all, I hope your Monday is going alright so far! I just wanted to let you know about a little project called the Enchanted Visions....

This project was started by two fairy artist friends, the legendary Amy Freaking Brown (real name) and the super inspiring Jessica Galbreth. They came up with an game of choosing a title and creating a piece of art inspired by that theme.

This evolved into something much more. Every month a new theme is given to inspired participating artists and the artists (myself included on most months) create a new artwork for that theme. The only rule is that the art is newly created for the theme, though artists may do past themes as well.

There are now over a hundred artists that participate each month.

Very recently the web director (and one of my personal friends and big faery sister) Coriander "Uberness" Shea Detwiler has passed the web director job over to the super inventive and awesome Lisa Cree.

Lisa has taken what was once a gallery on a partnered site site to become it's very own personal interactive website where one can really get to know the talented people who participate every month.

All four of these ladies have done so much for EV, so if you see them on the web, wave at them and check out their truly stunning and unique artwork.

If you would like to check out the new Enchanted Visions Project site, (you totally should) please click here.

To see my personal gallery on the site, please click here.

More previews!

Stardancer ink drawing- Created for the Enchanted Visions Project

Hey guys, because I'm nearly done painting this one, I figured I'd show the preview of the inked drawing, Stardancer. This piece has been created for two reasons. First, I needed Enchanted Visions themes to start getting finished. And second, so that I had a pretty painting to put over my bed (to clash horribly with my red comforter...) Funny enough, I actually don't have any original work of mine hung up anywhere in my house... Which is weird...

Btw, I noticed that this painting looks very odd without colors... At least to me it does. Please hold your breath for the colors, as they will be epic.

Anyways, I'm pretty psyched right now about painting. I have one already completed - Dirty Sock Troll - and am almost finished with three others including this one! Wow! It feels great to release my muse!

Unfortunately these paintings probably won't be released for a few weeks-- my web guy is working... On the bright side I *might* be able to get a working scanner and printer so that I can do my own scanning/printing and then I'll go crazy with painting. It's nice to rely only on myself!