I really wanted to complete at least one more piece before the holidays. I tried not to rush it though. I took this picture about a week ago, and I wanted to paint it for my friend as a Christmas present. The shadows were really dramatic and half the picture I took was a little dark. I decided to try and reflect her personality by using bright and sunshiny colors. I painted this with gouache on a matte board.
When I first started painting this I was really worried that I would mess up her hair. Just because I thought I would go overboard on the color and even though she's a redhead, it would be way exaggerated. Even in the first layer of color I thought I did a pretty decent job in the shading and with the color itself, and I'm happy with how her hair turned out in the finished product as well.
Her shirt was pretty difficult to paint too with all of the wrinkles and the stripes, and that took me a while, but I think that is probably one of the more interesting aspects of the painting. My favorite is the reflection off of the window. It's pretty faint but it softens the painting a little bit, and I think it really adds something to the painting. I got really excited because it reminded me of a reflections project that I did almost a year and a half ago. I'll show you guys those too!
I really like the idea of this piece even though its a little old, and sort of crazy. I also did a reflections piece referencing those really hipster camera shots reflected off of an eyeball. It was a neat idea but I wasn't too happy with how it turned out, and I won't be putting that one in my portfolio. I did these both with watercolor.
