new mexico mtn girl's weblog

I have been busy painting.  One of the people I first met on this wide world of the web was Cindy Dyer.  I was instantly drawn to her beautiful images of flowers (what else?) and followed her right away.  That was many moons ago and many different sites as  well.  We are friends on different web pages and facebook too.  So last week I saw her post asking another friend about this image Cindy had taken a long time ago, and I fell in inspiration…..

ballet dancer by Cindy Dyer

fianlly something sparked my creatives juices and I couldn’t wait to get started.

I knew I wanted a smooth watercolor paper for her.  she is so soft and romantic in this light and I really wanted to capture this.  I went with Fabriano Acquarello 140lb hot press, extra white.

my art desk

my printed out version for reference

I was nervous at first. It had been a very long time since I have painted children and I have been putting this off for far too long.

So I got right in with the colors for her skin.  I learned in college to use grumbacher red, ultramarine blue, new gamboge hue and burnt sienna to make skin tones.  But I really wanted to use this new tube of  Winsor Newton Opera Rose I bought on ebay from a famous artist I have loved for years.  I also wanted to use  a favorite gold that I picked up from Daniel Smith’s line of Quinacridone colors.  It is called Deep Gold and I love it.  So I tested those too with the ultramarine and a little New Gamboge Hue, but found the deep gold had enough yellow so I didn’t really use much of the gamboge.  I also needed a deep rich brown for the blacks so I used Winsor Newton Burnt Umber.

I used layers of color, one on top of a dried layer to achieve the richness I wanted.  Pink was the deciding factor and the white of the light all but drowning her out in it’s brilliance.

I think she’s pretty done.  I think I will darken the far curtains above and below her tutu and call her good.

Ballet Dancer flooded in the light

What do you think?  I think I am in love and I owe it all to Cindy, thank you.

I know that ballet has many names for all of their poses so if this has a name I would love to know it.

I will put her up for sale soon.

limited palette of:

Winsor Newton Opera Rose,

Daniel Smith Quinacridone Deep Gold

Winsor Newton Ultramarine Blue

Winsor Newton Burnt Umber

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• Triple Bill, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, review (telegraph.co.uk)
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Tags: affordable art, art, arts, artwork, ballet, ballet dancer, beautiful, beauty, color, costume, Fabriano, fashion, glow, illustration, light, limited pallet, opera rose, Paint, painting, pictures, pink, Quinacridone, romantic, Sienna, style, sunshine, thankful, Ultramarine, watercolor, watercolor painting, winsor newton

This entry was posted on December 30, 2012 at 2:36 pm and is filed under abundance, art, beautiful, bright, CheyAnne Sexton, drawing, fine art, grateful, great idea, light, LOVE, magical, me, painting, pictures, pink, sunshine, sweetness, watercolor, watercolor painting, white, winsor newton. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.