Night Fairy

Following my last blog post on Creating Collage Paper, I would like to share with you this painting using the collage paper I created. The idea came from following the first lesson of Juliette Crane’s Serendipity I classes. From the unknown came another vividly colourful painting! This one is of Little One dressed as something fancy, and this time she is a Night Fairy!

The Background

On a large A3 Mixed Media paper (Cansons), I glued some of the collage paper which I had cut up in random shapes. Then I incorporated other collage papers like colored tissues, paper napkins and wrapping paper whilst working layer after layer with paint, Molotow acrylic markers and gouache. Juliette recommends covering up all the white spaces. One of my favorite trick is to use fluorescent shades, and here I used red and green. Golden Fluid Acrylic in Teal was also used. At this stage, it’s also a good idea to leave some collage-free space so you could paint the face of the character you have in mind.

Painting Her Face

I love Juliette’s idea of cutting out a shape for the face! The purpose is to have an idea as to how and where to place the face and work around it for the rest of the character. Whilst she used musical sheet, I used Japanese-language newspaper. In addition was a wrapping tissue version of the shape glued behind and slightly above the newspaper collage so the hair can be taken into account. Mine was in pale pink and hence not clearly visible in the photo below. The face was then painted using a mixture of titanium white and yellow paint, and the hair was in Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold with the eyes in Antelope Brown. Then with black charcoal pencil, I sketched in my ideas, adopting Juliette’s idea of flower petals around the face.

A Little Diversion

I started developing some negative space which started out fine. Halfway through though I realised I went overboard by covering the entire space with too much paint. First came the teal and the green in the bottom. I was not sure if I liked it anymore because the painting came out too blue with Little One hidden in the background. Then I firstly replaced some of the Teal with Ultramarine Blue whilst adding some wings on Little One because I didn’t want to lose the Teal entirely. Of course the Ultramarine Blue was not a good idea because it was still too blue though darker. And then I topped it up with some Quinacridone Magenta. Hmm…

Enlightenment

I was in a rut so decided to leave the painting alone overnight and work on it the following day. Before working on the background, I decided to focus on Little One by adding some details on the eyes and with some glass beads and modelling paste, painted in the fluffy collar and headband in Iridescent White. Then it dawned on me: Make the background entirely dark! That way, Little One and her stunning outfit will pop out more. So I sent for some Payne’s Grey. Now we’re talking! In the end further embellishments were added including some of Sennelier’s 3D Liner in fluorescent pink, gouache in pink as well as emerald green, gel pens in gold and white and additional collages using origami paper. I also added a slight color in her cheeks too. It took some time tweaking and adding until I was happy with the painting. And now I am!

The painting turned out differently to what I was hoping and definitely was a diversion to Juliette’s lessons. This is because I was a bit heavy handed in the negative space stage. Not to worry, the painting turned out well despite the diversion, and besides the lessons are there to help you pick up new techniques and stimulate inspiration rather than emulate. As such, I must say the results turned out for the better. And of course, there is nothing stopping me from “repeating” the lesson to rectify where I thought what I could have done. Meanwhile, here is my Little Night Fairy, how sweet and pretty she looks!

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