Illustration Friday: Subterranean (the Painting)

Falling Asleep - the Painting

This is one of the rare paintings I like a lot and learnt a great deal about. It was the first time I mixed oils and acrylic paints on canvas successfully, and used a sandy plaster (comes in a tube) and a palette knife for the first time to create a grainy texture.

It was almost a replica of my illustration a few years back, but I've made the background more green.

This is also the first time I've actually done a companion painting to something I've drawn before. I have an adversity to repeating my drawings, but perhaps I wasn't fully satisfied with my sketch before, thus this second attempt on canvas. This cold glassy metallic face is supposed to be the mirror image of the face below.

For some reason, this girl looks like Laura Kirkpatrick of America's Next Top Model albeit with red hair like Nicole Fox, the winner of the same reality tv competition. This is a screen-capture of Laura's photo on her blog...

Look alike? haha, maybe I've been watching too much ANTM. There's the same serenity there at least. Laura's a bubbly girl who is very inspiring with her zest in life.

Back to my painting.

Can you see the texture of the flow of stars? That's the plaster I spread with a palette knife before painting. Exciting stuff! 

The stars are created with a very dry brush dipped in very little blue oil paint and making the brush go round and round in circles. I thought it created a very nice soft effect that acrylic would not achieve. Best of all, I didn't have to wait for ages for the oil paint to dry.

The aliens have a reduced role in this painting. Somehow they look nicer fading into the background.

Thanks for staying tuned!

:) pixy