⛱ 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