Aloja - Day Three

Day three of progress from yesterday. One more session and she should be good to go. Sorry for the differences in color between days. One day it's sunny, one day it's cloudy, yada yada. I'm trying, and I plan to scan this puppy for perfection when it's done. This is fairly close in color, but perhaps slightly more yellowy green in the sky.

Aloja - Day Two

As promised, day two of work. Day three may be delayed due to some other project deadlines (and I'll be able to show you these projects later), but the updates on Aloja here will keep coming. In any case, I only estimate maybe two more days to finish up the water and the birds and those last details.

Not to worry

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten to daily update. But due to some prior obligations that happened to coincide this weekend, I wasn't able to work yesterday (I was judging a llama 4-H show, no kidding) or this weekend. I will show you Day 2 of my progress which happened today, but I've gotta go! Look back later Monday or Tuesday for days 2 and 3 of the progress!

Aloja - Day One

Rather than a big reveal, I thought I'd show my day by day progress. Might be more fun, or a different kind of fun anyway!

Day 1
(I'm excited!)

Color palette (oil): Titanium white, cad yellow med., raw sienna, burnt sienna, permanent rose, cobalt violet hue, ultramarine, sap green, payne's grey. Stand oil as a medium.

Aloja!

Nope, not the Hawaiian greeting, that's the name of our foxy Catalonian, water nymph, bird conjuring girl! I've worked on some color studies here in Photoshop, and I'm already sold on which colors I'm going with. Can you guess? Will it be:
1. Dusky twilight, green pond water with purple goodness?
2. Magical, mystifying teal and purple? Or...
3. Sultry red lady with tumultuous grey blue waters?

no peeking





no peeking






and...

If you guessed "Dusky twilight green pond water with purple goodness" you guessed correctly! I just think it's the most interesting of the three, the least expected. And Lord knows I've been painting things blue for a few too many projects now. It is settled! Expect some crisper edges and darker darks in places for the finish though.

Finished Stepping Stones and new painting

So here is the finished Stepping Stones piece! I'm going to let it sit me with me for a couple days and then decide if there is something else that needs to be done to it.

In the meantime, here is the next piece I'm starting. It's a Catalonian (Spanish) myth about a water nymph type creature who lives in fresh water and can turn water into blackbirds. Now, magical or otherwise, I have no idea why you would ever want/need to turn water into blackbirds, but it sounded like a cool illustration! This is a value study. But I'm telling you- I need a bigger scanner! It took me 10 scans to get the whole 28x36" drawing!

Shucks!!!

What would happen if Disney's Pocahontas and Megan Fox had a lovechild that then became famous enough that a Bratz doll was fashioned after her? It's a question I'm sure we've all asked, but finally- finally, here is the answer... in the form of "Oops! This first attempt at this painting is not working". Go ahead, click on the image to really understand the horror.


I said to myself, "uh oh, does this look like Pocahontas?" and then, "Oh no... there's a bleeping willow tree too!" Had I stumbled upon gold, John Smith? No, it was just lowly corn... shucks!!! (you see what I did there with Pocahontas, my upset feelings, and the title of this post? Huh? Huh?) I had never planned a Pocahontas painting. But our subconscious can have a funny way of creeping up on us. Well, the damage had been done and I needed to do some serious damage control, which I've been doing today. I did everything I could to make this new girl as much UNlike "Pokey" as I could, including redoing the face to be less Bratz like. I give you... red haired girl!


Still work to do, but we're on our way. I also got rid of the glowing pink plant. I figured there was too much foreign plant life to concentrate on, so I just eliminated it. It was also just a poor compositional choice, so I'm glad he is outta there. It should be all done by next week, and I'll do my best to get the best reproduction I can. A lot of the light lights are washed out in this one.