Paint the Town Red

Today, I went to get my hair done.  Nothing drastic, just a trim to tidy up the ends.  And I had my highlights refreshed.  With preference to warmer tones, I saw my new colour had some reddish bits.   The colorist combined two colours in fact so one was the red (dark auburn) and the other a bit on the lighter side of chestnut brown.  As soon as the foils were out, I was so pleasantly surprised!  Happy now.  And purely by chance, I happened to have painted Little One with hair in the auburn shade of red-brown the other day.  Must be a little omen!

Face First, Background Next

I started with the face first.  This is because a few days earlier, I had been painting another piece with Little One in it, and brushed on the leftover skin-colour paint (Jane Davenport’s Portrait Paint Kit) on a blank piece of paper for future use.  Then I wanted to experiment again using a mixture of paint and white gesso to add a coloured tint to the background, whilst priming the paper (Cansons Mixed Media Paper).  So that’s what I did:  combined gesso with a few drops of Dr. Ph Martin’s Hydrus Watercolor in Sap Green and spread it with a palette knife on  the paper.  And wow, using the palette knife does give an wonderful swirly effect.  Once dry, I cut out some random bits of scrap paper (Japanese newspaper and origami paper featuring Hello Kitty!) and glued them around.

Splatters & Scribbles

I proceeded in adding doodles in the background using oil pastels and then splattered some ink over it, using both acrylic ink and Ecoline ink..  Here, I stuck with green, whilst adding a bit of blue as well.  I love using those vibrant colours!  Then I outlined and drafted a sketch of my Little One with some purple and pink oil pastels for the hair and red and magenta for the dress.  Those colours compliment the green background rather well.

Painting Away!

First I began painting the hair.  I mixed some brown (Burnt Sienna by Amsterdam Acrylics I think) with some fluorescent red (Fluo Red by Sennelier Abstract) and brushed the colour on.  I thought this “strawberry” colour looks so cool on Little One!  For the eyes I firstly painted in purple, including the lashes.  I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea though and thus painted over the area with some dark brown (Burnt Umber) which consequently gave this interesting aubergine shade.  Just leave it, I decided, looks quite cool!  And for the dress, I went for a combination of the fluorescent red paint mixed with some fluorescent pink acrylic ink.  And what a stunning shade of red it turned out to be.  Wish I actually had a dress that colour myself!

Making Her All Pretty

I just added some few details here.  The lashes I repainted darker and decorated with some bronze glitter glue on the base, and drew in the whites of the eyes.  Then for some added cuteness, I painted in with the same white the “mandatory” round collar for her pretty dress.  Having found some more scrap bits of origami paper, I punched out some flower-shapes and glued them onto the dress.  And finally some brown streaks on  her hair using an acrylic marker.  And look how sweet she looks now.  Ready to paint the town red!

Another practice using various mixed media techniques and experimenting with colours to create some interesting stuff.  I love how the hair and dress turned out, and the eyes as well.  Great to see the different variations of Little One as well as she enjoys transforming her style whilst retaining the kawaii.  And loving the vibrant summer colours!