My Seattle Skyline

Last week, a group of friends and I went out to a painting class, where we were all taught how to paint the same painting, the Montgomery skyline.  A couple of the ladies were from San Antonio, so they painted that skyline, and I painted the Seattle skyline.  Since I have many fond memories of my time there, it only seemed natural for me to do so; but it was a last minute call.  I'm so glad that I went for it.  I share with you here, the three main stages of the evolution of the painting.  The painting style is in the flare of Van Gough's Starry Night.

Stage 1.  I created the sky with long sideways brush strokes in shades of blue.

Stage 2.  I painted the black skyline and afterwards filled in the buildings in black.  I then used white for highlighting the edges of the buildings.  I blended it in with the black paint, followed by dry brush strokes at the end to create a shimmering effect, as well as to add texture.  From the bottom of the buildings on downwards, I painted the rest of the canvas black.  Over it, in different shades of blue, I created the water with fast random sideways brush strokes of differing lengths.

3. Completing the painting: 

Next was the sky.  I made the moon, a large yellow circle, and other smaller yellow and white circles (stars).  I worked with shades of yellow with yellow and white paint.  Then, in small thin brush strokes, wavelike motions, and a small round brush, I created the shimmering starry night effect.  The little dashed wavelike lines are in yellow, white and shades of blue, blending in with the night sky.  Lastly, I created the shimmering lights reflecting over the water.  I painted small dots, thick at the base and thinning out towards the tops, like a bunch of grapes, and then, in the opposite direction, towards the bottom of the canvas.  At the base of the buildings line, in shades of blue, I used long grass like shaped strokes to create the reflection of the water onto the buildings.  After I took my painting home, I hung it over a large corner photo stand.  We have a water theme I think, starting in the living room.  I hope to continue growing this theme with other paintings.

The Ringgo Bird

Someone had asked me this week to create a drawing for him that is inspired by a graphic of a little bird that had music notation coming out of its wings.  I share here with you the stages of evolution of my drawing.  I titled the drawing after the name of the person who requested this drawing, perhaps coming up with my own genre of a musical inspired species of birds.  I had a blast making it!

Stage 1.  

I started by drawing a diagonal treble clef as the bird's body and later came back to it and added the piano keys.  The graphic's bird had the beak small and closed, so I did the opposite, I wanted it to be more aggressive and animated.  I later added flames and fumes projecting out of the Ringgo's beak.  I wanted both head and feet to have some sort of music notation, so the feet turned into music notes bracketed by a duple sign.  On the Ringgo's head I drew a crest made up of a crown-like bracketed quintuplet fixture, as well as tremolo dashes on each of the notes' stems.  

Stage 2. 

I made the eye diamond shaped and angular.  I always like juxtapositions of opposites: in this case, it's the angular eye and beak in contrast to soft long flowy feathers and the rounded treble clef.  Next, I drew the peacock-like tail feather, which inspired me to continue the light and dark striped texture of the rest of the bird's feathers.  I used a cotton ball to do my shading and an eraser for my highlighting.  I then go over the lighted feathers with the darkened cotton ball lightly, in order to blend in the shades some more.

Stage 3: Competed drawing

I use the darkened cotton ball to shade around the edges of the paper.  I wrote the title of the piece over the flames coming out of the bird's mouth, as if the text is a part of that texture.  I chose only a few elements to be in the darkest charcoal shade: the note heads on the crown, the beak, the eye and long eyelash-like wave, and the outline on the left part of the treble clef.  Having only a few elements of the drawing in the darkest shade, gives the observer's eye a focus.

I hope that you've enjoyed my post.  

Stop back at Creationlily from time to time 

to see some of my new creations.