Self-Isolation

Poor Little One! Now that we are in the midst of this on-going COVID-19 outbreak we are advised to stay home. Going out is even legally forbidden in some countries but luckily in the Netherlands it is more lenient. We are just strongly advised to stay home, and with all restaurants, bars, cafes and even beauty salons shut, less the reason to want to venture out. Little One, for one, is one of the good girls abiding by the rule. She wants to not only protect herself but is also sweet and considerate of others by not succumbing and spreading the germs. Bored? Never! She always finds creative things to do like painting, drawing, being creative and making cute outfits. Oh and she is experimenting at home with her collection of hair pieces and wigs and makeup because the hair salons are shut! So I wanted to paint about her sweet happy adventures!

Leftover Paint

The painting began with some excess pink and brown acrylic paint I had whilst working on another piece, Social Distance. With a palette knife, I scraped some of those excesses off onto a page from my Marabu Mixed Media sketchbook and came back to it another time. The painting then resumed as I began randomly adding green and yellow ink around the paper. I wasn’t sure what my next step would be but I had a hunch that I would once again go for Little One again!

Painting Away

Rather than graphite pencil, I sketched my Little One with watercolor pencil. The beauty of these pencils is that you can not only erase the marks but even better the colour dissolves when you paint over them. With graphite, you are left with some residual marks when you forget to erase them and it’s impossible to do so after it’s covered with paint. Here I used Caran d’Ache Prismalo. Another thing I discovered whilst at the Paint Mojo workshop was using acrylic ink! They are more versatile compared to paint if you’re producing mixed media artwork and working in layers. Whilst already fluid, the colours are substantially vivid and strong and as they dry relatively quickly, you can easily layer on top of each other.

I started with Little One’s hair by firstly scribbling away with watersoluble oil pastels like Caran D’Ache Neocolor II before brushing in some fluid acrylic. A nice auburn colour which she is happy to try out! For her face, I combined white acrylic ink with Antelope Brown which worked really well. The eyes were firstly colored in with Payne’s Grey to be further worked on later. Then I went back and worked on the background by randomly painting in playful colours and shapes.

Adding Details

And now it was a matter of working on the nitty gritties like gluing small scraps of origami paper. I added more details on Little One’s hair by running some red streaks directly from the ink dropper, The eyes, collars and buttons were painted in white although I lined the whites of eyes with a white acrylic marker for precision. Doodles were then added with a series of markers as well as Sennelier’s 3D Liners (also acrylic). Finally the lash’s were dotted with some gold glitter glue. And now!

Doesn’t Little One ever so adorable? She always does. Love her new hair colour. Don’t worry it’s just a hair piece she made by herself! And those big shiny eyelashes. We also love that pretty baby-blue frock she made to lighten up the dreary mood. Combining her new look, I thought this bright happy background would further liven up the atmosphere we all need. Let’s create more cheerful and kawaii artwork!