That magic moment

Some softening around the previously masques areas plus just a touch on Mr. Bunny's eye and it is that magic time: the moment when I whisper to myself, "If I touch this once more, I am going to screw it up for sure!"  And so, the painting is done.  It gets signed, branded, photographed, packaged, sealed and mailed in short order.

Nan Henke

Texas Hill Country Art

www.TexasHillCountryArt.etsy.com

As promised, layers of bunny-ness create shape and texture with black, then red, grey and brown.  I had a lot of time today for layering and drying.  Next step (you guessed it,) is "off with the masque."  Warning: now that the bunny is starting to look soft, the masque will leave behind some temporary harsh edges.

Nan Henke

Texas Hill Country Art

www.TexasHillCountryArt.etsy.com

A layer of pink (!) goes over about 90% of the bunny.  But don't worry, future layers will start giving him a brown coat.

Nan Henke

Texas Hill Country Art

www.TexasHillCountryArt.etsy.com

Suprise!

Once the masque is off, the next step is a SUPRISE:  it is putting masque back on!  This time it is just a tiny bit to protect the white around the bunny's eye, along the edge of the ear, the hilight in the pupil, and some light edges on the tower.
Then we start to build the colors in the bunny and tower, starting with the lightest, a base layer of light gold.  Figuring out which bits of the tower were the back legs and needed a darker base color was my intellectual exercise of the day.  But it will be worth it to have the tower appear three dimensional, instead of just a mass of wires and metal leaves.

Nan Henke

Texas Hill Country Art

www.TexasHillCountryArt

The worst moment

It always looks worst just before you take the masque off: too loud, busy and smeary.
 Here is the "after" photo:

Oh yes, much better!  You can even pick up on some stems near the bottom.
I think I will soften a few hard lines and add a few more details, but overall, the background of lettuces is finished and it is time to move on to the bunny and the tower.

Nan Henke

Texas Hill Country Art

www.TexasHillCountryArt.etsy.com

Peggy voted for more detail. So the next step is masque again, this time to protect the colors I have already painted. Some lines for stems, and some leaf shapes in the lighter areas, just to keep me from going too far overboard with darker details!
You can see that the new masque is white and clear, and the old masque (still needed) is gold.

Nan Henke

Texas Hill Country Art

www.TexasHillCountryArt.etsy.com

Purple Lettuce

I painted the sky and purple lettuce first, then after they were totally dry, I went back in with the light green and darker green lettuces.  It does not matter as much if the greens overlap a bit.  I painted the lightest shade of each color first, then bled in the darker bits, wet on wet.
I am trying to decide if I want to leave them with this soft look or add more detail in a later step...  Any input?

Nan Henke

Texas Hill Country Art

www.TexasHillCountryArt.etsy.com

BAck on track

I am back on track with a better sketch. I added masque to the bunny and the tower so that I could wash in the background loosely. It is kind of like rubber cement and will come off later to reveal the clean paper underneath.

Nan Henke

Texas Hill Country Art

www.TexasHillCountryArt.etsy.com

Initial sketch turned out badly...

This is a little hard to see, but it is the initial sketch for Peggy's Bunny.  It stinks.  The bunny is too high in the picture and there is no room left on top to finish the cute metal garden art tower. 

I do these sketches in watercolor pencil, so that once I start painting, they melt into the paint.  But it makes them hard to erase.  So, it is lucky that this paper has another side, cause it is going back to the drawing board!

Nan Henke

Texas Hill Country Art

www.TexasHillCountryArt.etsy.com

Playing some more...

Peggy has chosen her size, so we are off and running, but first a little more study of the photo. This time I used paint.net to "posterize" the colors at various levels.
The more I study this photo, the more impressed I am with it. Peggy, does great composition come easily to you, or did you have a hard time convincing this bunny to sit in the right spot so that his sunlit fur was framed by the darkest lettuce?

Nan Henke

Texas Hill Country Art

www.TexasHillCountryArt.etsy.com

play with the photo

Next, we play with the photo on the computer. Black and white, high and low contrast and even inverting the colors, helps to hilight details and depth of color.

Nan Henke

Texas Hill Country Art

www.TexasHillCountryArt.etsy.com



Next in the commissioned art line is Peggy's bunny. This cute little guy lived under her lettuce leaves in last summer's garden... sounds like a Beatrix Potter story, doesn't it?
While Peggy is deciding on the size, we will go ahead with some of the preliminary study work, so stay tuned!

Nan Henke

Texas Hill Country Art

www.TexasHillCountryArt.etsy.com