ArtCtrl

Break from RedditGetsDrawn works for something a little different - Kiki’s Delivery Service. I watched this film in 2011. It’s rather perfect. If you haven’t seen it yet, please check it out.

This is a painting I did from a screenshot from the film: 

My mother has a Black Cat. I like how the reference photo also includes a black cat. I treated this reference the same as how I’ve been handling the RedditGetsDrawn works - red line, tone, and since I did it on the previous post - color. This is the view that I’ve been working with from RedditGetsDrawn so familiar setting for me.

Here’s the painting -

Line. I captured the figure. I changed the scene in the distance to a spiky, rugged land, rather than  the city scape in the reference. I’ve been using this pattern in all my recent backgrounds. Coming into the foreground from the distance are lines that could be used for a water effect. 

Tone applied. I used the same tone on the skin and the bird - the lightest area of the painting. Mid and slightly darker for the water area. Mid and darker than water for the sky. The land was very dark - but not as dark as the cat! It is a black cat after all so has to be the darkest! Other elements have been removed since the reference such as the birds (only the one bird).

This is the color layer only. I’m using two or three different tones for each color. In the past I’ve just done a quick wash of color over the tone layer. I’ll like to explore color further and experiment with a larger range of tones per color.This is a good start. I’ve used these colors all before, except for the blue in the dress. I had to create a new blue for it - I like to keep my colors quite restricted so was nervous! It helps the figure stand out against other areas in the painting.

Included this image which is a mix of the tone and color layer. Feels finished over the color layer which is missing the black. There are areas of the color layer that is missing color - such as the cat and broom. For future paintings like this I’ll use a color - best to fill in as much areas as possible. I do like some I’ve been giving the tonal paintings though!    I’m going to leave this post with a quote from Vincent Van Gogh:

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.