I changed this painting so many times that I lost track, but I finally love her!
When I started out, I was trying to paint something splotchy and wonderful, like one of my favorite artists does daily.
Her name is Kelsey Howard, and you can check out her gorgeous paintings on insta at @kelseyhowardart or at kelseyhowardart.com.
Anyway, here is where I started.
I mean, she’s ok. There are parts that I quite like, but OVERALL, I thought of her as “the ugly one”.
I had hoped that if I lived with her for a while, I would become more fond of her, but the opposite was true.
The prettier my other paintings got, the uglier she looked.
Finally, one night, I decided enough was enough! She had to be repainted. Not the flowers, just her. But, I did want to add more flowers because they felt sparce.
So, I added more traditional skintones and gave her brown hair, as I sometimes get complaints that I paint too many blondes(🤔).
I was happy-er with her but not in love.
I felt her skintone was off and that the paint was too thick.
I hung her back on the wall to dry and cure and went on with my life.
I didn’t even take a photo of her, which probably says more about how I (didn’t) like her, than any words.
Finally, I decided that I would give her one more chance, and if I still didn’t like her, she would have to go!
To start with, I tried just lightening the colors but it wasn’t working.
The paint was just too thick, so I washed and scraped all the paint away from her, leaving just the flowers.
I covered most of the blue “sky” with a mix of Fresh Green and Viridian Hue (Turner) and started at the beginning with her.
Next, I re-sketched her and started painting with my usual pretty skintones by Holbein.
Once I had the base skintones on, I started on her hair.
I went for a dark blonde, in a sort of Brigitte Bardot style.
Her eyes were still bothering me. They just seemed too small. To fix this, I washed them away again, re painted the area in skintones and re-drew her eyes.
I really like the way her eyes came out this time. I made them slightly bigger, painted them 2 shades of green, and game them a wide, dark eye liner.
She even has a touch of green “eyeshadow ” to complete the look.
And, here she is!