Little One enjoys her newly-revamped garden and dressing up in fancy outfits so why not do both? Today, she wants to show you her new pink dress made by a friend in Hungary featuring a newspaper in the local language. How cool is that! Her new outfit comes complete with a boa collar and hence she thought a silver crown would look great. And to complete her look she went for some wacky eyelashes. Apparently they are magnetic. Then comes a blue bird to admire her fashion: “How sweet you look”, she tweets. And of course a colorful painting about this was inevitable!
The Beginning
Actually creating this intuitive mixed media painting inspired me to come up with this kawaii story. Whenever I run out of ideas or want to take a break from sketching or paint about something planned, I just start doodling and playing around with whatever stuff I have to see what I can come up with. Here begins a random doodle with some Faber Castell’s fluorescent oil pastels on my Strathmore Mixed Media sketchbook. Following that are some blocks of colors using Quinacridone Magenta and Cobalt Teal fluid acrylics by Golden and fluorescent yellow ink. Collages of pink wrapping tissue were then introduced as well as a torn bit from a Hungarian-language newspaper a friend from Budapest had used to wrap some gifts for me. I love incorporating written bits in different languages!
Making of Little One
After incorporating more color such as Cobalt Blue, Emerald Green and Purple, I was ready to decide on a character. First thing that came to mind was creating a dress from the Hungarian newspaper. And of course, how about get Little One in the picture again? There she could be holding some twigs enjoying the garden! And hence I set about developing this idea further by coloring her in with acrylic paint and adding the crown to balance the composition better. An “outside the box” mood then got the best of me and I went for some colored unmatched eyelashes. Collages of paper napkins depicting plants were also glued on. That purple bit on the bottom was a bit of a distraction but I used it to my advantage by developing it into a bird!
Finishing Touches
Not liking the blue bit on the crown, I thickened and added texture to the crown with some modelling paste and silver paint before lining it with Sennelier’s 3D Liner. The right bottom corner could do with some more, I thought, and hence I stenciled in some plants with some Distressed Oxide and doodled some flower petals with 3D Liner and my new Izink Diamond glitter paint in pink. For the crown, I tapped on some of the Silver version of this paint with the excess dusted on the bird. The lashes were also filled in with some glitter glue by Ranger’s Stickles. I love lots of sparkles! And now, I was definitely complete with this kawaii colorful painting.
Once again, a lot of fun creating! Intuitive painting like this certainly fuels the unexpected and makes it all the more exciting. I also love playing around with different colors and getting the piece vivid and colorful especially to suit the summer mood. Another feature of intuitive painting is the interesting effects from aimless mark making and experimenting with different mediums in various colors. And look what we can create: A cute and happy painting of Little One in her flamboyant outfit and surrounded with so much vibrance!
My Kawaii Quarter 