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Spirit Keeper One of the things I enjoy about art is that I have to constantly learn things.  When doing this painting I wanted to portray a young Indian who would learn the tribes tradition, culture, language, spiritual teaching and respect for animals.   I couldn't think of a title that would convey he would be the person to take it to the future, The Hope, just seemed too generic.  I looked up the Cherokee word for hope, but it is a string of letters no one would know.  Since most of the native historical traditions are oral I next went to learning about the storytellers.   Storytellers are a key person in the tribe and impact their knowledge to the future generations through the native schools.   That led to me understand how desperate the US government had been to stamp out and eradicate all indian cultures.  It is truly shameful. this is acrylic and I played around with the bokeh background to keep it simple and the focus on the connection...

Secrets I haven't take a log of classes so I am not sure if the way I am doing my online lessons is correct or not.   But while I watch the videos I don't usually do the actual photo reference, usually try to find a reference similar but then work through the process with that photo.    This is a lesson that Kara Bullock did in my online course and, well, it was just fascinating to me.  So in this case I made an exception as I really like the pose for this.   I looked for something similar but didn't find it.  The lighting in this is really interesting and hard to come by. However, I took a little liberty with the background as I always struggle with making them interesting. Learned so much in this lesson, the colors are not what I would normally use in the skin tones so really just expanded that option so much. Thanks much for stopping by and taking a look.

Into The Mist It is always good to mark milestones on your journeys, and I feel like I have made one in my art over the last few weeks.  Not what you would call consistent, but I think I have hit onside winners.  I am trying to analyze what exactly is different, but not really sure what it is.   I think I am working with more with:  contrast, layers, different palette colors.  It seems there is more solidity and depth, overall a more pronounced presence in these paintings that I really like.   This is a combination of two photos, one from Neil A. Kingsbury of PMP, and another of a small girl with the cloak that I liked.  The word prompt was "in the mist"  I changed it up a bit and turned it "into the mist" as I really liked that hand coming out at you inviting you to what?????? Thanks much for stopping by and taking a look.