⛱ Beach Beauty #2

034/2 Beach Beauty #2 002

This week at Hobbycraft a customer expressed interest into whether Beach Beauty was up for sale after it had been displayed on the Store Window.  The Store Manager has this week taken the display down but is hoping to re-position them somewhere else in store.  At the moment it is in storage in the Hobbycraft warehouse.

This week I am going to set a challenge for myself of making a complete new copy of this piece for myself.  And I want to try and get it as close as I can to that original.  

To follow I only have my original template, photos and blog entries for when I painted that original piece in late June 2021.

1.Painting of the Background

2. Drawing around the template and adding important details.

3. Starting on the skin 'BASE' colour.  This took three to four good coats to cover up the blue.

4A. Areas covered by 'Warm Glow'

4B. More Areas covered by 'Warm Glow'

5. 'Highlights' 'Titanium White' and 'Dark Shadows' are then added.

5. I have now painted her hair and facial features in Mars Black and with a fine brush.  Starting to really take good shape now.

6. I coloured the sunny areas of the Swimsuit in a nice cream colour.  It took a few layers to cover up the blue of course

7. And I then painted the shaded darker areas of the Swimsuit

8.  I have now added the twinkle in her eye, a splash of red on her lips, a belt and I added some detail on her swim hat too.

9.  I have now painted the towel a Burgundy, Wine colour like the original.  I wanted to try and create the feel of a nice thick and fluffy towel

10. Time to paint the sea in.  To create a smooth straight horizon I used an Electrician's insulation tape as it works better than masking tape.

11. I have added in the foam, sand and the lady's shadow

Artist's Notes: So the challenge here was to recreate an earlier piece as closely as possible and improve any areas which I felt necessary.  Well, I passed this test easily.  This has been recreated following my 'How I painted a 1920's Beach Beauty' Blog Post from 5th June.

🛡 The Legend of Zelda, The Wind Waker 🗡

044 The Legend of Zelda, The Wind Waker 

This was another request from Adam to help decorate our Games Room.  

The Wind Waker was released for the Nintendo Gamecube and then later a high-definition remastered version was released on the WiiU.  

It is another in the classic gaming series of Legend of Zelda.  

So I started off by painting the entire A4 sized box canvas in a light blue and allowed it to dry.  I then did my usual technique of cutting out the picture and drawing around it onto the canvas.  After I had painted the light blue background, this layer (even when dry), felt sticky and tacky.  It was a warm day today with bright sunshine and I am wondering if that was something to do with it.  It made it a little difficult to draw on.  I don't think it was the type of paint used as it was the Pebeo Studio acrylic mixed with Daler Rowney Graduate Acrylic which are two that I have never had a problem with before.  Maybe it just needs a little longer to dry thoroughly 🤔

Above you can see the original on the left and mine on the right so far.  The boat has only been painted in base colour at the moment and there is a lot of detail to go on top of this so please don't judge it as yet.

I am on the 'Colouring In with Base colours' stage upon which a lot of detail will be added later.

The 'Colouring In with Base Colours' is going pretty well I think.  I don't feel 100% happy with the way the Wood on the boat looks.  Maybe it will really wake up when more is coloured and detailed up.  Adam is very happy with how it is looking so far so it can't be too bad.  What I must must try not to do is lose hope and give up on it.  With copying a picture like this, it does end up looking different to the original.  It is my version of it so don't put that pressure on yourself.  

Have now made a start on Link

A close up of a finished Link

Am now working on the boat which is apparently called the King of Red Lions

💋 Marilyn

042 - Marilyn

So with this one I decided to paint the whole canvas panel with Titanium White to begin with, before even putting on the Masking Tape borders.  After it had dried it gave the canvas a bit of a yellowy tinge.  I thought it was probably what Gesso (a primer) is but I am not sure that is correct.  I am yet to discover if Gesso is worth doing or not.  Painting the canvas panel white to begin with certainly has made a smoother surface to draw upon.  

I guess the only way I can learn if Gesso makes a difference is to buy some and try it out.  

I have drawn around my template of Marilyn Monroe and drawn in other details too.  At the moment she looks very goofy and frightening but remember this is a rough guide.  I always try not to put in too much detail at this point as it can bog you down and I like to try and keep it nice and simple.

The skin of the face and neck areas are first painted with  3 coats of the Base Colour.  The Eyebrows and Lips have been coated in one layer of the base colour.  And with every new layer will be now left clear until painting those areas.

Warm Glow has now been added.

Highlights are now added.  On the right cheek in this pic it looks as if I have added some darker shading but is where the paint has smudged the pencil.

On top of the Highlights layer I added a Titanium White layer too.  I then added the Light Shadows.

And in this photo above I have now added the Darker Shadows.  I am having a break from it at the moment but as I always do, I am sitting back and examining photos of my work and I can easily pick out areas that need extra attention.  The main one so far is the Right Brow area looks the wrong shape.  I'm haven't quite made up my mind yet but I think the dark shadows might be a little too dark.  I also want to try and make the skin look smooth.  Marilyn Monroe was such a glamour icon I do not want her skin to look lumpy and bumpy with craters!  It is quite a challenge but it is one I am enjoying.

I went back to Marilyn and corrected the eyebrow on the right and then carried on with all the facial features.  And as I thought as soon as the eyes were there the whole face just came alive.  Mega pleased with this so far.  There is absolutely no mistaking who this is meant to be a painting of.

Now I will look at my latest photo and see again if there is anything that needs adjustment. 

It is good for me to be critical as it makes me do the very best painting that I can.  But I have learnt to only start work on the adjustment after much thought of exactly what course of action to take.

It is very strange how I can only spot the areas needing extra work when I am looking at a photo of it.  I guess, where I am looking at the actual piece in such detail while working on it I am not looking at it as someone else will.  The photo shows it as a whole and any adjustments normally present themselves within the first few seconds of examination.

After close inspection of this piece, I think the Mouth in its left corner looks a little awkward and also the space between the eyes at the bridge of the nose needs to even up a bit too.  Marilyn had the perfect facial bone structure, but so far this Marilyn does not. 😊

So this morning I have worked on the areas which I highlighted as needing work.  They have made strong but subtle differences.  I will now leave the bottom left lip alone as I don't think I can improve that area any more.  The bridge of the nose still needs something and what really stands out to me during this inspection was the left highbrow maybe needs extending more.  The jury is still out on that at this present time.  

One area I will work on next is the Philtrum area between the nose and the top lip.  The centre of the Cupids Bow is a few millimetres off from where I think it should be.  This shouldn't be a huge job but I must have a clear idea of what action to take before starting.  I should only need to use both lip reds and the 'highlight' skin colour to rectify this.

Hopefully the picture above demonstrates what I mean about the Philtrum area.

It may well be only a small detail but once I had spotted it I just had to change it as I would forever be drawn to it.  I think it looks a lot better for the change too.  I have finished the face for now.  The finishing touch to this piece will be the beauty spot mole on the right cheek.  It has not been forgotten.  

So as you can see I have decided to leave the face alone now and this afternoon I have been working on Background, Shoulders and her Top.  The Shoulder on the right needs a little more highlighting with Titanium White which I have noted from this last photo.

I have now made a start on the hair.  This will need as much work as the face has has had.  I started off by using brown to mark the darker areas of the hair and then went over all the hair (including all brown areas) with the Highlights (Skin Tone).  This seems to have fitted the colour match very well.  I have also used some cream that I had already mixed and have used titanium white for hairs highlights.  There is a lot of detail to work on here, so I really do not want to rush this stage.

In fresh daylight this morning I have carried on working on Marilyn's Platinum Blonde hair.  There are a lot of colours used in here.  Yesterday I used some dark brown on shady areas and today I have painted over them relying on the dark to show through and lighten the shade.  It is working well.  

Maybe the hair doesn't need as much work as I previously thought.  I think it could be very easy to overdo it.  At the moment, on the hair there is nothing jumping out at me saying it needs improvement either.  

I went on from here to tidy up what was left and finished up around the ears, earrings and beauty mark.  Really very happy with it!

🐝 Bee Kind

041 Bee Kind

 Saw something very similar to this on Pinterest and wanted to do my own cute version.  I started off by painting a prepared canvas panel with Titanium White.  I then drew my design lightly on top of that.

I then mixed up a few different shades of yellow with hints of Orange and started colouring in the Honeycomb.  With this piece this is what took the time.  I also added some darker or lighter areas to each one.  I then coloured in the bee giving him a cute character. 

To do the lettering I didn't have a stencil with large enough lettering for this project so I went onto my computer and opened the Microsoft Paint program and used the Text tool and wrote Bee Kind on the blank page.  I then selected it into a font that I liked and resized it too.  After this I used my usual method of printing and cutting it out then drawing around each letter on my canvas.

I know it is a long drawn out process but it works well and you can use any font you like as long as it is installed on your Personal Computer of course.

This photo shows some of the lettering has been pencilled in.  I put some masking tape on and drew a level line on it so that the lettering was straight.  I have made mistakes with getting lettering straight in the past so wanted to try this.  I think it has worked well too.  You really can never have too much masking tape!  After both words were drawn round I then coloured them in carefully with a fine brush and with a steady hand using Mars Black.  

This was a fun little project with a very important message we could all take on board.

🌿 Eucalyptus 🌿

 

040 Eucalyptus

This was a nice easy little project for a rainy Midsummer's day.  I was inspired by a similar artwork that I came across on Pinterest.  I looked for a Eucalyptus leaf 'clip art' online and did my usual technique of printing it out, then cutting it out.  I then drew round a large circular object which I randomly divided and put a smaller circle in and coloured in with complimentary colours.  

This shows the piece that inspired it. 
This was after drawing the design onto the canvas panel

This was very much along the same lines as Leaves Tropicale which was a very similar artwork that I did in early June.

💋 Ruby

039 Ruby
(Based on Similar works by Malika Favre)

Following on from Ladies Day which I painted recently I wanted to do another in the same sort of style.  I found a picture online that appeared on the front cover of a magazine called Woman.  I am not sure who the original artist is although it is very similar to Page Turner by Malika Favre, the inspiration for my last piece, Ladies Day. 

For this piece I did it by splitting the flipped picture into two seperate templates.  I did this because I wanted to be 100% sure of the hair lines position.  I probably could have free drawn it in but I have started it this way now so may as well follow it on.

The edges have now been drawn around and I am now about to start the free drawing of the facial features.

All is fully drawn in now and we are now ready for the fun bit - Colouring it in!

A close-up of the features

The background was painted using Daler Rowney's Graduate Acrylic Cadmium Red Deep Hue (504).

Then I put in all the Black areas using Winsor & Newton Mars Black.

I then went back to the same Red as the background and coloured in her hair and lips.  I have now decided to give her an eye which I am fairly confident of drawing in.

For the Brighter areas of skin I used Soft Skin.  The eye has been drawn in in this photo but does look odd.  Hopefully it will look right.

For the middle shaded areas I used the 'Shadows' shade that I use in skin normally.

And real dark shadows were painted the same Mars Black as all others.  As you can see from the photo above, I have drawn in both eyes and it does look a litte weird because the original image that inspired me doesn't have eyes for it's an art style.  Mine will be different.  Oh and don't forget to paint in the Nostrils!

So I started off by painting in the bright whites with Titanium White making sure there were a good few layers of it to completely cover my pencil sketch marks.

Then a Fine brush and the Mars Black were back to start defining the eyes with some eyeliner and mascara.

And a couple of Titanium White dots to finish off.