Warrior Fairy WIP

Eureka!!!   I found the cookie sheets.  They were were in the garage, of course, makes complete sense, as I moved a lot of the paper products there so the movers wouldn't get involved with my studio stuff.  Since I worked hard in there for a couple of hours yesterday trying to get it organized, I decided I deserved a play day.  After all it is TGIF.

So, out came the pan pastels and I decided to try to work out a picture of a warrior fairy.  I found a photo reference from Neil A. Kingsbury, a photographer from PMP, who definitely is a pro photographer and has some wonderful dramatic shots that I think I can convert into my fairies series.  I like his original shot too, as it is the warrior and the background of the same person, it is something I will probably try  as well.

Anyway, since this is working out an idea I decided to do it in pastel.  She is the fairy warrior who is exploring the universe and has the backing of the light orbs, water, earth and air to give her additional powers if needed.  Yes, I have read way too many Nora Roberts novels.

So the background is pan pastels of purple/blue/magentas over the black paper.   Both the galaxy and the red planet are pastels.  I then masked off the 3 orbs/planet/warrior and splattered.  I cut out the original drawing and used it as a mask for the orbs/warrior to keep them relatively clean.  This is the same process I do when I work with acrylics.  Even though this is on Artagain paper I figured it wouldn't get too wet and cause it to wrinkle.  Set it up in the garage with cardboard underneath and a big way around the picture to keep the area cleaner of splatter marks, believe me when I tell you they blobs can fly really far.  I then used gesso, regular thin consistency,  and a tooth brush,  and cut loose whipping the toothbrush bristles in all directions to get the stars.  Once I get a bit further I can either eliminate/enhance/add stars using the brush.

I guess using the gesso splatter will technically make this a mixed media piece, although it is all pastel other than the stars.

Thanks much for stopping by and taking a look.