Two projects after my own ideas

The task was to paint two paintings; with subject and tools of your own choice. Still not having access to my oils, I went for acrylics again, and started out with a canvas board of the size F2. I had a vague idea for what I wanted to do, and it boiled down to what you can see on the right. I looked for a nice photo of a bus stop, and it had to be in Edinburgh. Eventually, I found one on the Lothian Buses website, I think, or somewhere similar, and it fit what I wanted to do. Originally I was going to have the girl stand up, leaning on the signpost, but that would have disturbed the picture rather than add to it. Having her sit down, and on a big old trunk, made it more coherent. You can still see the things that make the picture just that degree of odd: her satyr legs and horns. I used acrylics, and after my first bout with the picture I wasn't too happy with it. But then I came to an important realisation: I didn't NEED it to look perfect right away. I was going to come back to it and work on it again and again, and after many times and many hours, it would look better. That was a very important piece of insight.

I worked with flat brushes a lot for the larger areas, but then went over to smaller, round brushes, with rather long hairs. I found some incredibly cheap and sturdy little brushes at an art shop, that work perfectly well for how I treat them and use them. The trees to the right of Waverley Bridge (which connects Old Town and New Town in Edinburgh, and is the place where I first arrived to, by, incidentally, bus) were almost stippled, and I had a hard time at first finding the right balance between photo reference, suitability for the overall picture and what colours would actually look good. The puddles of water were something I fretted about, as I couldn't seem to do them justice, but they are done well enough, I suppose. I did try to make the painting tell a bit of a story, though you can't see her facial expression very well from the photo. Nor are the colours as nice as they are in real life but that is all right. That's a greater issue with my next picture than with this one. I call it "Waiting for the bus" by the way, and it's my first properly "urban fantasy" painting, I guess. Next time I decide to go for these tiny detials, however, it'll be a no-grain paper for me, or oils. I might also work on this more in the future, but we'll see. I started by sketching with pencils, and then work from larger areas to small detail.

Here we have the picture that came into my mind, and I couldn't wait to paint it. It's acrylics on a 24 by 32 cm paper from a Canson cold pressed, four side glued block for acrylics. I started out by grabbing a round, thin brush and a piece of Process Blue (cyan), to quickly sketch the outline of the bird. It's a phoenix, known as Fushichou 不死鳥 in Japanese (the signs mean respecitely "un-, non-", "death, dying" and "bird"), and it was lovely to go haywire with colours, and to make use of the great delight I take in painting fire and all variants of it. Fire, you see, needs some study to be able to paint it properly. Here, I have used both the "real" way that fire is built, and the "perceived" way. In the very inner core, some white that is almost blue, and then, darker as we go further away from the source of the flame. Yet it seems sometimes that it is the very outer parts that are the brightest, and indeed, in some cases, flame does go from bright, not as bright, dark and then brighter again, before the air takes over. The picture is life and motion, is rebirth and is a riot of colours. Once I had finished the bird itself, I knew I needed to bravely venture into the realms of background and so I did. With a bit of some blue-tinged green, I started out from black and then went head to toe with the fact that I'd painted real pretty wings... and that I'd have to try and keep the flamey aspects of them. Drybrush, an old friend of miniature painters worldwide, became part of the solution, and then I just added more and more green, and diluted it with water until the very core, which is pure Titanium White. Some parts are better blended than others but all in all it was a very good result, compared to expectations.

It is very difficult to capture this in a photo, but I went off to my figure case and brought out Games Workshop's Shining Gold and Burnished Gold. Adding a dash of these metallic paints to some parts gave the picture the finishing touch I wanted. It brings it to life in a whole different way. I think I missed going over the detail shot in Photoshop however, but oh well, there you go. I forgot to sign the pictures too, before I brought out the camera.
I also, incidentally, used the colour Red Gore from the GW range, as it is an old-time favourite anyway, and I simply didn't manage to get the right red, when I tried blending colours. Those colours come in small pots, and are acrylics too. In the very darkest recesses of its wings, I used black with some Red Gore in it, and the loose flames emanating from the wings are painted with Cadmium Yellow Lemon or somesuch over Process Yellow, with a dash of white in some.
I am very, very happy with this picture. I learned a lot from making it. The joyous expression in the phoenix's face, the swirly feeling of movement, the composition, the balance between colours and lines and details; yes, I can safely say I am very proud.

As per usual these days, I was listening to Harry Potter audiobooks while painting. For these two, I had reached "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" which, to my immense happiness, proved to be as good as I remembered it - not as good as my favourites of the series, but so very much better than the poor movie. And Fawkes, Albus Dumbledore's phoenix, makes an appearance in it.

That will be enough rambling from me. I hope you enjoy these my latest projects, and I am also proud to say that I feel confident enough now to take on some kind of commissions. As of yet, payments for them are not standardised but will be dealt with on a case-to-case basis. I hope that what I have posted here so far shows some extent of my versatility. I enjoy painting thoroughly, whether it flows easy or presents me with tricksy obstacles.