Three for a Key

    To be honest, this is looking like it is going to be a bit too pretty for my taste, even though the flower she is blowing away is henbane, and it is associated with mental illness. 

     For a little while I thought about adding mosquitoes to add to the misery, but, mosquitoes are too small, unless I decided to turn the image into a '50's horror flick. So, I opted for crows, which are very smart and communicative, and are the stars of their very own counting rhyme. 

    I'm glad I got this far before the semester really takes over my life. There is still a lot to do on it, but for better or for worse, the composition is mostly set, and I can work on it in bits when I have the time.

    I think for my next painting, even if I decide to do the toe dancer dream, the subject is going to be older. And not too pretty.

 

At least it's not green anymore

       

    

    In the last post, the moon looked green because of optical mixing of the application of yellow over the blue background.  Now, a couple of layers later, the moon is starting to shine. 

     Talk about an exercise in figure/ground! Every time I sit down, I negotiate the lines between them. I think I will miss how this grid looks on the dark parts. I'll have to see if there is a reason to keep them.

     

     In the meantime, I shortened her left arm, and the elbow isn't quite right yet. I may have to break down and get out a mirror to model for myself.

Starting Layers

I know, I know. The moon looks green so far. It's just because there is some optical mixing of the blue in the background and the yellow I applied over it. It will get better! 

Background reference and an old trick

I love this trick of finding the center of a circle: Draw two chords. Mark the center of the chords and draw perpendicular lines from each, extending them inward until they intersect. And then, viola! The center!  

More Photoshop

Okay, I think I'm doing the moon. 

I changed this to greyscale in Photoshop to see if I might like it if the background were a moon.