Digital Painting adventures

The past week has been a bit chaotic as it usually is the week before Christmas. I have been too busy for art or for blogging. It missed it!

I have spent most of my life doing some kind of art, but painting digitally is somewhat new to me. My education was in graphic design, so I understand the programs. It is this Wacom tablet that I am having to get used to. I used one a lot at one of my jobs back in the early 2000s, but I was just airbrushing and editing back then. Completing an entire painting is a whole new hand-eye coordination exercise. So, last night I worked on a painting. It isn't hyper-realistic, like so many amazing digital works out there, but it is in my style. That is something that I did not know if I could achieve digitally. What I have done so far is this: I am still not sure how much more I will do on this particular painting. I am ready to start on one that is not a practice piece.

Dryad painting walkthrough

I took photos of my process. Here is a walkthrough-

Materials used:

Strathmore mixed media paper, pencil,watercolor, colored pencils, acrylic ink(brown), brush tip marker, and a tiny bit of white acrylic.

I started with a basic sketch of the face. I did not add much hair or the branches. I wanted the paint to do the work there.

I then began to add light washes. I believe I used yellow ochre for the hair ans skin, and brown for the branches. I used a wash of rose madder on the nose, cheeks, lips and any parts of the face that would be ‘rosy’. I used a blue wash for the sky and the shadows on the face and neck.

I continued to add color to the hair. I chose a reddish brown. I filled in the iris of the eye. I did not worry about painting around the pupil, since I was going to color it in with a dark color later. I noticed that the brown on the branches was washing away as I painted, (My first time using this paper) so I simply wiped it away with a damp cloth. I used a small brush and some brown ink to define them instead. It worked well. I also used a bigger brush and used the brown ink in the hair. I used colored pencils to add detail and wildness to the hair.

I got out my brush tipped marker and filled in the pupil and lined the top eyelid and added more wild hair and loosely outlined some of the branches. I used the colored pencils to shade the details of the face and neck and added a couple of tattoos. I used pinks and browns. I then used white acrylic to make the shines in the eyes and.a reflection on the bottom lip.

I finished up using more colored pencils just to darken the rosy bits and the shadows. I drew eyelashes to accentuate her eyes

And here is the final product- scanned and available in my Etsy shop.  https://www.etsy.com/shop/FlutterblissArt

Feel free to leave comments or questions for me. 

The fox and the snow

Yesterday I woke up to snow. Lots of it, which was perfectly fine with me. I love hanging out in my PJs with nowhere to go. Until I realized I needed to go grocery shopping. Until the toilet clogged and no plunger was to be found. It was time to drive to get supplies. Anyone who has lived with snow is probably well versed in the snow dance. First you bundle up, sweep(literally) the snow off of the car, scrape the windows, warm up the car, all without trying to freeze yourself. So I did that. Then there was the driving part. That was an adventure. No one can see the lines on the road under the snow, so it is kind of a free for all. I also know now, that when the snow is slushy from all the traffic, to drive about 20 miles an hour and that it is ok if everyone passes me. I take comfort in knowing that if I wreck it will not be my doing. I like the cold. The snow is just so new to me. I have lived in Florida for twenty something years and I have always known that I preferred the cold weather to the sticky, sweaty, humid Florida. Although, I do miss all my friends there.

I also did some painting yesterday. This is my second attempt at painting a fox. I didn’t get very far on the first one. It was a very rigid looking fox and looked very forced. It will be gessoed for a future painting. This is the one that I finished



“Fox in the evening”

11inx14in

acrylic on canvas

for sale.

To see what other things I am working on visit my facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HollyBroxson.Art

Hares are finished!

It was cold and snowing this morning and I had to run errands. I did finish the hares, though. It is still untitled, but I wanna show it anyway. This painting is for sale and I will have prints up on etsy just as soon as I get this baby scanned. 

This photo is a bit truer to the original than the pics in my previous posts. I just found my camera from the move.