M&A Anniversary

 So I had the chance to do a wedding portrait for my cousin's anniversary! (On a bit of an expedited timeline, which was a fun challenge. I drew it on one Sunday afternoon and painted it on another.)

Original photo

Initial drawing

Completed drawing

Initial color blocking for the suit

Thinking *I'll just do her hair while I'm using black...*
Which was a terrible idea, because then I had to avoid getting the black everywhere as I filled in the rest of the painting.

Background and boutonniere 

Showing some skin. (It was pretty yellowy for a moment there; I'm happy with the pinker shade I managed with a careful wash.)

M's face

Hand and dress details. (The original photo doesn't show the rest of the dress on the right, so I had to improvise—not my forte.)

Facial details and hair work. I'm pretty happy with how it came out.

Background details

Detail work with a white gel pen (the single greatest innovation in modern watercolor)

Original photo

Watercolor final

I'm really pleased with all the facial details and how the hair turned out. I didn't quite get the proportions right on A's face, the hand is probably too small, and I didn't quite capture M's smile and eye contact with the camera—so there's always room for improvement. I'm very happy with how it turned out overall, especially considering that it didn't take as much time as most of my previous works. 

One of my favorite things about doing portraits of friends and family members is that I feel like I know the person better after staring at them for several hours. As I reproduce their faces, I'm struck by how beautiful they are. And I know I'll never look at them quite the same again. 

Coronavirus Crafts: Baby Yoda

So I’m a hobby artist. I work almost exclusively from photos, and I have a hard time creating in a void. I usually rely on someone to tell me what to paint (hence you’ve seen so many wedding photos and pictures of my nieces) but I’ve never done a commission. (It’s a small area, but that’s where I operate.) 

 I felt like once I monetized my hobby then it wouldn’t be a hobby anymore—and I desperately want a hobby and really don’t want another job. 

Well, on a video call my nieces told me that they were painting. I said I would paint with them if they told me what I should paint. And thus Baby Yoda Holding a Pumpkin was born. 

This tiny little guy caused quite the stir. When I posted a picture to my Facebook Gallery, this 30-minute doodle easily eclipsed the painstakingly painted wedding photo in likes (they were posted simultaneously) and garnered an immediate request for a commission. And since I didn’t have any other projects on my docket, I figured I might as well try it. 

I was able to knock it out over several hours on a Saturday evening while listening to Midnight Sun on 2.35 speed. 

The sketch and a touch of green.

All the rest of the green. Definitely more creepy than cute at the moment, but don’t worry. We’ll get there. 

Ear detail. 

Not loving the chin area, but I’ll fix it in a bit. Coat detail. I’m always amazed by how it feels like a mess when you’re painting clothing but somehow it ends up looking great. 

Here’s to hoping the eyes help it cross over from creepy to cute. 

Baby Yoda squad.

Correction on the left ear. (I used to think that watercolor was unforgiving, but that is SO not true.) Reworked the mouth to be cuter and less creepy, even though it ended up being “less accurate.”

Finished product of The Child with a Turquoise Ball. Its future home (a play therapy office) has a gray and turquoise color theme. Here’s to hoping it will match well! 

Anyway. That’s the story of my first commission. 

Coronavirus Crafts: M&T

 Hello friends! Here's my most recent watercolor project. It's a (long delayed) wedding gift for a dear friend. I knew this picture would be a fun challenge, especially with the reflection and the angles of their faces.

Honestly very satisfied with this drawing.

Hey, M and T: If you ever need proof that you'd make a classy white-haired couple (or evidence of what you looked like in the preexistance), here it is. 

The background came together rather quickly. I tried to work so that the reflection matched up without being identical. I think it worked fairly well (though some of it was pure luck).

When I painted his sweater, I thought "Oh no! Maybe I over-emphasized it!" But most people I've shown it to have mentioned immediately how good it looks. So... good.

Tristan's hair. I'm fairly satisfied with it. 

Did some basic things with M's dress (and actually just called it good for simplicity's sake). I was a little bit nervous about M's hair but it came together fairly well.

CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT HOW GREAT M'S HAIR TURNED OUT?!

The jewelry came together well, too.

I bet you're wondering why I have a dirty toothbrush here...
It's a creative trial and error effort for the beach.

I went a little too dark on the beach (not necessarily intentionally), but it came out okay.

Here's the final photo. 

I'm pretty happy about all of this. And I'm becoming more comfortable taking risks and trying new things in painting. 

Coronavirus Crafts: Roommate Wedding

So my lovely red-headed roommate got married in the Payson Temple a while ago, and we just connected again so she could share the picture she wanted. Remember how I try to avoid head-on shots and figures closely interacting? Lol. 

The Sketch. I kind of panicked and forgot how to draw at first. But I got there eventually. 

Things I should have noticed at this stage but didn't: 1) His face needs to be longer. 2) Her nose ends too high. 3) Her arm should be reshaped. 4) The shadow of the bouquet is off. 5) I should have drawn them bigger in proportion to the background and then I wouldn't have had to worry so much about the architecture. 

The Windows and the Suit. I'm mildly disappointed in the windows, but I'm pretty proud of the suit. I just focused on the different shadows and letting them decide the shape.

The Wall. Architecture is a bit of a weakness for me. Partially because I don't find it particularly interesting to paint, so I don't have a lot of experience. But I think this came out fairly well. 

The Faces. Faces are always hard, but they're especially difficult when they're wrinkled with emotion. Shadows are hard on faces because you don't want to make them black or too gray because then the face looks sick and tired. And sometimes doing a darker skin tone doesn't give enough of a contrast. So it's a tough balance. But I'm getting better at getting the small details with just a few hairs of his brush. 

The Flowers and His Hair. I went minimal with the flowers and didn't bother drawing them out in detail beforehand. I think this is about when I realized that his face was a little short. I was tempted to try and compensate by making his hair longer. But I didn't. It's a different hairstyle than I've done before, but I think it came out okay.

Her Hair. My roommate has the most gorgeous red hair. I wanted it to look realistic while still making it rich. Also, my sister did our roommate's hair on the day, so I really had to try to do it justice.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, even if I had to simplify the twists a bit. 

The Green and the Dress. Okay, I got a little lazy here with the green. I added shadows to the dress to create the shape.  

The White Highlights. Guys, I really love the effect of the white gel pen. It really makes the lace stand out. I may have gone a little bit overboard in some places, but I'll learn. 

Final picture (the best shot I got before I delivered it to its happy new home).

Coronavirus Crafts: J at the temple

So I let J choose, between two pictures, what I would paint for her birthday. She chose the one of K and J splashing in puddles. This was the other option. And Aria stood by her 3-year-old's choice, but we both knew that Aria wanted to see this one in watercolor. Well, it just so happens that Mother's Day isn't that far away from J's birthday, so I just did both. 

Happy Mother's Day, Aria!

I did not expect the temple to be so hard to draw! I guess I don't have a lot of experience drawing architecture, and somehow doing it at a slight angle is infinitely more difficult than doing it straight on. But I think it came together pretty well.  

Does the quality of the watercolor paint have something to do with the vibrancy of the color? The slightly higher-quality set I got when I was 12  (or maybe 14) is essentially dried out at this point, though I can still use some of it. (That's the magic of watercolor.) The new set I have was much cheaper and lower quality and I've noticed naturally brighter hues. But for a tropical Hawaii scene, bright colors really fit.  

Yellow highlight on the top of the bushes. Darker green detail. 

The sidewalk and her cute little shadow. I felt a lot better about the stairs this time, but maybe that's because there's only really one. 

I was very carefree with the sky. Part of that is because the original photo portrays a fairly washed-out or too-light sky, so I knew it would be up to my artistic interpretation anyway. I liked the thought of capturing movement and change in the sky, since that's what I've usually experienced in Hawaii.

Goodness, these windows were difficult. They had to be very small, very even, and very symmetrical. And they all had to be like that. Even though it's just a handful of rectangles, I think it was the hardest part of painting this piece.

I added the rest of the detail to the temple. I was a little at a loss for how to depict the relief sculpture at the front of the temple. It's too far away to show in great detail, but it still has to look purposeful. So I looked at the relief sculpture and narrowed it down to the most basic shapes: lines, curves, circles, and L-shapes. Then I painted those. 

Also, J looks like a cute little ghost child here.

Skin color is always a bit of a hit or a miss, and there are more highlights and shadows than you'd think. I think this came out fairly well. 

Her dress is mainly pink with some variegated pink-and-orange tulle. I tried to capture that in the little folds of the dress. 

J has lovely blond hair that curls naturally in her humid Hawaiian home. I tried to copy over as much life and spontaneity and color into her hair as possible without making it too dark. 

The letters on the temple were another tricky part. I know that they read "Holiness to the Lord -- The House of the Lord," but the perspective of this painting places the letters too far in the background. The viewer shouldn't be able to read the phrase on the temple. However, the lines should look like the phrase even if they aren't clear enough to really read. So I wrote out the phrase on piece of scrap paper in a larger scale, imagined the essential elements of the letters and word groups, and wrote that. It worked out well, so I added it to the temple. It could probably be centered better, but it's not bad. 

Finished, scanned product.