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Description
Out of my three paintings of Gemma (all done within a couple of months), this one is my favourite I used what I had learnt from the watercolour piece to do the background - i.e. I blobbed paint straight onto the canvas and mixed it on there rather than a pallette and kept it really loose. I also wanted to use tips I've been picking up while learning how to draw from life and paint more expressively, as I've been feeling that my paintings lack a sense of life in them, so I didn't go with a pencil base on this one - I went straight onto the canvas with watered down acrylic to mark out where I thought things should go and used relative positioning (e.g. the inner corner of the eyes lined up with the edges of the nose etc.) to try and get everything proportioned right.

I wanted more focus on her face so I deliberately painted her body in a tanslucent way to let the tone of the background show through, and I made myself use a larger brush than I wanted to at each stage to stop myself from getting bogged down in the little details too early. Overall, I'm really proud of how this one's turned out and I think it's a great improvement over my first painting of Gemma which was only completed about a month before this one! I feel like there's more personality showing through here and that the fur looks much softer (I've come to the conclusion that I have the same problem with painting fur as I do hair - I need to work on that).

I didn't time this one or take progress shots as I was trying a new way of painting and just wanted to concentrate on enjoying the painting process

This painting will be making it's way to my Aunty as a Christmas present She's not on dA though, so I think I'm safe posting it early (I usually like to wait until after it's been received but I can't wait that long! )

Acrylics on 10" x 12" (25cm x 30cm) canvas

Other paintings of Gemma:
Hello There
Gemma Watercolour

Description
Out of my three paintings of Gemma (all done within a couple of months), this one is my favourite I used what I had learnt from the watercolour piece to do the background - i.e. I blobbed paint straight onto the canvas and mixed it on there rather than a pallette and kept it really loose. I also wanted to use tips I've been picking up while learning how to draw from life and paint more expressively, as I've been feeling that my paintings lack a sense of life in them, so I didn't go with a pencil base on this one - I went straight onto the canvas with watered down acrylic to mark out where I thought things should go and used relative positioning (e.g. the inner corner of the eyes lined up with the edges of the nose etc.) to try and get everything proportioned right.

I wanted more focus on her face so I deliberately painted her body in a tanslucent way to let the tone of the background show through, and I made myself use a larger brush than I wanted to at each stage to stop myself from getting bogged down in the little details too early. Overall, I'm really proud of how this one's turned out and I think it's a great improvement over my first painting of Gemma which was only completed about a month before this one! I feel like there's more personality showing through here and that the fur looks much softer (I've come to the conclusion that I have the same problem with painting fur as I do hair - I need to work on that).

I didn't time this one or take progress shots as I was trying a new way of painting and just wanted to concentrate on enjoying the painting process

This painting will be making it's way to my Aunty as a Christmas present She's not on dA though, so I think I'm safe posting it early (I usually like to wait until after it's been received but I can't wait that long! )

Acrylics on 10" x 12" (25cm x 30cm) canvas

Other paintings of Gemma:
Hello There
Gemma Watercolour