Stages of a Painting

After painting owls for the e-course "How to Paint an Owl" I felt I needed to paint something else - so I started a new painting. First I just laid down some pages torn from a German paperback and added acrylic paint in red and purple on top of it. I love to spread out the paint with my fingers.

After the paint was dry, I adhered some scrapbook papers and used a brand new stencil for creating this circle shape in the lower left hand corner. I mixed molding paste with some yellow acrylic ink and smeared it onto the stencil. When the molding paste was dry, I partly stamped on top of it. I also penciled in the shape of the head and shoulders of a woman and marked with black acrylic paint where the facial features should be. It looks pretty scary this way, rather Halloweenish.

Using several acrylic paints and water (and a brush this time) I started to paint the face and the shoulders. You can't see it here, but there are many many layers until I decided it was time to add facial features.

Eyes, eyebrows, mouth and hair were added - but I didn't like the mouth at all (she looked like she was constantly sulking), so I painted it over again. I also didn't like that the top of her head was rather flat. Her eyes were too big and too blue as well.

So I added more volume to her hair, she got a new mouth and her eyes changed as well. I began to like her.

This is the final painting - a daisy on her shoulder, a pattern on her shirt, some added words, more worked-on hair. I tried to put more expression on her eyes, but am not quite sure whether I was very successful. Anyway, I'm happy with her.

"She saw beauty in everything" 8 x 10 canvas, available in my Etsy store

Although a day late, I'm still linking this to Paint Party Friday. It's way too much fun to miss it.

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