Virtual Paintout 26: Sri Lankan Princess!

Yay, I finished in time!

This paintout was irresistible. How could I NOT paint an adorable little elephant I discovered along the roadside in Udawalawe National Park, Sri Lanka.

That's where the Virtual Paintout gang went for the month of April: to Sri Lanka. It was a blast! They revere elephants there, and even decorate and beautifully paint them for festivals. 

In light of that, I imagined my little Asian elephant was on her way to a Festival, and gave her a leg bracelet with turquoise stones and golden bells.

Here is the original location where I found her (you can click on any pics to enlarge):

The design surrounding our Princess was influenced by the traditional style of arts and crafts in Sri Lanka, and I left some of the birch wood showing in the finished painting.

First layers and linework:

Starting to add shading and hints of color:

 Working on grasses and the Princess:

"Sri Lankan Princess"

Sri Lanka

acrylic on 8x8x1.5  cradled birch

(prints and cards available HERE)

I hope you enjoyed meeting our Sri Lankan Princess!

Retta

A Princess

Here it is almost the end of the month, and once again I'm scrambling to finish my painting for the Virtual Paintout! I really did start early. Life just loves to get in the way!

My new goal: defend my Studio Time like a Mama tiger!! :-D

In the meantime, below are a couple of pics of my progress on the painting based on Sri Lanka, the country we are virtually visiting this monthly.

When I spotted this little elephant along side the road, I knew she was my subject. They revere elephants in Sri Lanka, and even decorate and paint them beautifully for festivals.

Fun factoid: Sri Lanka has more festivals in the year than any other country in the world!

I included border design based on the arts and crafts of Sri Lanka, and since my little elephant is on her way to a Festival, I gave her a beautiful belled leg bracelet.

Here are the first layers of Sri Lankan Princess - let's hope I get it finished before the end of the month!!

Hope you like my Princess,

Retta

Today: Discover How the Book Cover was Created

As part of My-Sister-the-Writer's book launch for Galaxy Nomads I thought you might enjoy seeing the "making of" the book cover.

Galaxy Nomads: Chronicles of the MacKenzie Clan

By Karen Elizabeth Brown

Since I hadn't read the book when I started, I began by asking questions from the author. I wanted info on things like characters, settings, tone, mood, themes. I may be doing the cover art, but the author has a "world" she's created in her own imagination, and I wanted to do it justice.

(Impt: Always be sure you use copyright free images and/or purchase the rights. We did both.)

Please note: for faster page loading, these are small thumbnails. You can click on any image to enlarge for details.

The first thing we needed was the right background. 

A wonderful photographer I happen to know 

(oh, gee, I'm married to him) gave us permission to use 

this photograph he took in Southern Oregon. 

Thank you to Jim R Stephenson Photography:

Cropped it:

Turned it into a night sky:

Landscaped it:

Now we need the Clan! Original graphics stock:

Modified to our Clan:

Added to background; 

yellow sunset backlighting to silhouettes:

Glow from sunset hitting our family:

Close up of the MacKenzie silhouette:

The Clan nestled onto the planet:

Now we need some stars, galaxies, night sky artifacts:

Our Ship is next! This is our original stock photo:

Sleeked out and modified:

The large intergalactic spaceship in which generations 

of MacKenzies left their home world, were born in, and died in!

The final image sans text:

And our finished book cover with text:

I hope you found this behind-the-scenes look at how the cover art was created interesting. I used a dinosaur version of Photoshop, PS Elements 6, but it did the job. If you need a source of free-to-use imagery, check out morgueFile.

I think my favorite part was creating the spaceship. It has a kind of "retro-future" look to it. No, really, that's a legit term in the art world! It cracked me up when My-Sister-the-Writer laughed and said that term was an oxymoron. Oh well, who ever said artists were normal, mwa ha ha ha.

Happy creating,

Retta

PS: for anyone interested in more detailed info on creating their own book cover, I wrote a 7 part cover art tutorial HERE. 

Virtual Paintout 25: Painting Sunshine & Shadows!

For the month of May the Virtual Paintout gang went to the city of Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic. 

I fell in love with the countryside in the South Bohemian Region, and when I saw a field of baled hay, I imagined that Claude Monet, the famous Impressionist painter who painted LOTS of hay bales, surely must have visited here! So here's my painting, in honor of Monet, an artist I greatly admire.

I call my painting "End of a Well Spent Day".

Leonardo da Vinci said: 

" As a well spent day brings happy sleep, 

so a life well spent brings a happy death."

The dignity and honor of good old fashioned hard work. 

Peace and contentment. 

The end of a good day. 

Headin' in to supper with Family. 

A well spent day.

My original location:

(can click on any pics to enlarge)

A black and white version to study 

the values before starting:

My set up and first sketching-in:

Oh! Guess what? 

I finally bought a little tablet to use for my reference photos!

So now I don't have to keep running back and forth to my 

desktop computer, or print out dull and dark paper references. 

It's a Polaroid 10.1 inch tablet. A TON cheaper than an iPad. 

But it gets the job done for my purposes. Here you can see the 

color mock-up that I played around with in photoshop:

Starting the underpainting here:

Decided to switch directions, and have fun experimenting 

with something I read about in the Susan Sarback book

"Capturing Radiant Light & Color": 

painting in the sunshine and shadow colors first:

Adding variations to the colors:

A couple of close ups:

And the finished painting:

"End of a Well Spent Day"

Cesky Krumlov

South Bohemian Region

Czech Republic

6 x 12 acrylic 

on wrapped canvas

(prints, greeting cards and more available

at rettastephenson.com)

Happy painting,

Retta

Virtual Paintout 17: Lucky Red Boots!

For August the Virtual Paintout gang, led by Bill Guffey  visited Kinmen Island, Taiwan. It's an island rich with history, off the mainland of China. 

We toured around (virtually, of course, via Google Street View) and I was fascinated by a lady walking down a country road. As the little google car with the camera went past her she partially covered her face. 

This view is of her looking back over her shoulder at the camera. I was intrigued, wondering if she was keeping her privacy, or just protecting from dust?? And the light was lovely as it played over her very oriental outfit.

But most of all, it was her RED BOOTS that captured me. Loved them! 

While reading about the island, I found that in China the color Red was considered LUCKY. Hence the title of my painting "Lucky Red Boots". I hope I got the Chinese characters correct. They are supposed to read Lucky Red Boots; my apologies if I got it wrong. :-)

Here is the link to the original street location, in case you'd like to visit for yourself. 

This is my 6 x 9 sketchbook of watercolor

paper. I had previously toned the page

with Indian Yellow. My reference photo

is of the original location. I played 

around in Photoshop with the color 

scheme til satisfied, then printed it out.

I started by applying some loose colors 

with my palette knife for the background:

 Still adjusting background with 

palette knife; adding, scraping off, 

just having fun with it:

Switched to brush; applied some glazes

 to background til satisfied; started 

with a silhouette for the lady:

 Here she is on the easel, finished. I 

added the lettering (hoping I got it right) 

to read Lucky Red Boots in Chinese:

 And a couple of close ups:

And all finished (can click any to enlarge):

"Lucky Red Boots"

Kinmen Island, Taiwan

6 x 9 sketchbook

acrylics

Happy Painting,

Retta

Virtual Paintout 15: Washington DC!

The Virtual Paintout gang has been traveling the world for 5 years now! Yay for Google StreetView!

This is my 15th outing with them. Remember, we are not ACTUALLY and physically there... we travel via Google Street View. It is SO much fun, and I encourage anyone to join. There is no obligation. You can do it as often as your schedule permits. Here is Bill Guffey's blog, Virtual Paintout, where you can find all the deets. 

So... for February we "traveled" to Washington DC. It's amazing how you think you are familiar with a place so iconic. Until you really LOOK at it. I totally enjoyed cruising the streets, both the familiar landmarks and the unknown backstreets. And that is how I stumbled upon "my" spot to paint.

I was cruising past the Marriot Hotel when a brightly painted 5 ft tall statue of a Panda bear caught my eye! I laughed, and just HAD to stop and zoom in. Yep... this was it.

The Panda was originally a part of a fundraiser for Arts and Grants Education programs in Washington DC. There were 150 pandas generously painted (for free) by local artists, which were auctioned off at the end of the summer of 2004.

The original artist of "my" panda was Anne Marchand, a prominent and talented Washington DC artist.   Panda was exhibited all summer in Chinatown, Washington DC, before he was auctioned off at the fundraiser.

Painted fiberglass statues like this are special to me because I've done them myself. I painted two 3 ft tall cat statues to help raise money for a cats and kittens shelter. If you'd like to peek at them, here are the links:

 

Little Cat Big Dreams   

Little Cat's Four Season Fantasy  

So... on to the making of Political PandaMonium!

(Can click on any pics to enlarge)

I cropped the original version down to this size:

First I sealed the paper in my sketchbook with acrylic medium, since I was going to be using acrylics and didn't want to risk any wrinkling issues in the sketchbook. 

It's a Super Deluxe Aquabee sketchbook with Heavyweight Drawing Paper, "For use with wet and dry media". I love this sketchbook, but still, it's only 93 lb paper and can't take a LOT of water. 

Here I roughed in a colorful underpainting for all the bushes and flowers behind Panda:

Drew in Panda and underpainted him yellow, for brightness and so I could SEE the design I was about to add. :-)

The first layers of flowers and foliage in the background:

Drew the Panda design in with charcoal pencil, then acrylics. 

Began painting the colors for his design, starting with a darker underpainting (this dark brownish-red was for the red areas). I used a simple "3 value" system. That's where you simply think "light, medium, dark" for each color. By blending and shading, you naturally end up with a lot of variety this way. 

For example: on this section of his finished tummy there are several design elements that are predominately Yellow. 

I let the yellow be the lightest value, using orange and red for the middle and darkest values. At the end of the day though, I usually end up playing around, and adding some purple shadows here and there, white highlights, and whatever strikes my fancy. Whatever works! :-D

Here is Panda in my sketchbook:

Close-up of his face:

And the finished image, Political PandaMonium:

(oopsie, see my goof? Kinda makes me think 

of political goof-ups.. mwa ha ha ha)

Political PandaMonium

acrylics in 6 x 9 sketchbook

Happy Painting,

Retta