Koningsdag 2018

👑 Today is a special holiday in the Netherlands known as “King’s Day”. 🎈 Party time in the big cities, but out here in the sticks, it’s family time and a wonderful community spirit 🎉 Orange is the colour of the Dutch Royalty 👑 So why not paint something kawaii?

Woke up this morning and decided I was not up for celebrating this holiday because am still feeling the aftermath of yesterday’s tooth pulling ordeal 😖and preferred to rest at home. Great opportunity to get the brushes out again!

So I begin by painting the Dutch flag in red, white and blue acrylic paint and once dry apply a coat of white gesso for a cloudy effect. It’s also to make a basis for further paint layers.

Then after letting the gesso also dry, I sketched in pencil what I planned to put in. Originally I had considered drawing my kawaii version of the Royal family, that is, King Willem Alexander and Queen Maxima with their three daughters but was not sure if it would be considered bad form. So I just drew instead me (I know, not me again!) and HJ looking cute in King and Queen costumes with three little kawaii random girls in orange dresses!

I had the idea of adding a layer of modeling paste for the crowns for added texture and enhancement and also mixed the paste with gold acrylic paint for thickness. How about that!

For the robes I mixed the same gold acrylic paint with Gloss Acrylic Gel for, as the name suggests, some gloss and shine. I did the same for the three little girls’ dresses in neon orange paint. And I liked the fact that these colours remained quite translucent so the Dutch flag still shows through.

Painted in streaks for the hair and dotted the eyes in by using a variety of brown paint. Now I was good to go!