Tinkerbell and Puff

I’m forever looking for ideas…especially ideas with great lighting! So, here I go again!

I came across this photo by Natasha at nnova.com. “How cute is THAT?” I asked myself.

However, that site no longer is active, so I could not reach her for permission to use her photo. So I decided to change it up, which I would have done anyway! Just like to have permission whenever possible.

First of all, I wanted to go with a format which was not so tall. I cropped it to work on a 20″x24″ canvas size. THEN I decided to see if I could find a different face that I would prefer. I DID, and superimposed that using Photoshop, blending and lightening to make it work. Came up with this:

As I painted I got another idea. Her little toe sticking up was cute, but I thought I’d like her looking at something more captivating. How about a little fairy, perched on her toe? I played around with that idea, deciding to curl the toe back down. The fairy is holding something up to the little girl, but just what it is, is up to the viewer to decide! Here’s a detail of that part:

While I was painting this one, I thought “Wouldn’t it be cute to have a matching ‘bookend’ painting, of a little BOY in the window?” Hmmmm! Rather than a fairy, perhaps he could be looking at a little dragon! The search was on, which would prove more challenging than I thought!! I had a difficult time finding any little boy sitting on a shelf or ledge (let alone a sunlit window!) but I kept looking.

I finally found a little boy leaning over to pet a dog. The lighting was great, but he wasn’t sitting on a ledge, so had to find the legs from somewhere else. I finally found an older boy on a window ledge. So I played with that idea, making his legs shorter to match the younger boy. Here are the sources for that:

Of course, I had to reverse the little boy image as well, to put him on the other side of the window, giving the “bookend” look I wanted.

Then to find a baby dragon! I found the perfect image, even though he was rather “mean-looking” and I wanted more cute. But I’d work with that. (My sister said “Well, he IS a dragon after all! Aren’t they supposed to be mean?” I thought…”Not THIS dragon! I want cute and innocent! :))

After a lot of manipulation in Photoshop, I came up with a painting plan:

Not perfect, but not too bad. I could work with it. One of the biggest issues was the lighting. The sunlight is obviously coming in from the right of the image, yet the little boy is lit from the left. That wouldn’t work!! So I created the light coming from behind him and to the right. Had to use my MSU on that one. (“Make Stuff Up!”) I tell my students that ALL artists have an “MSU” in Art! 🙂

I also liked the “turned up toe” idea, which I eliminated from the little girl’s foot, but decided to use here. I changed the hoodie color to gray, and added a touch of red in a shirt tail. Here are some details, including face details of both paintings:

…and here are the “Bookend Paintings” together. I had to make some structural changes in order to incorporate all the features I wanted, so the windows aren’t exactly the same. The little boy is a little smaller, since his feet are hanging off the edge, and I had to make him smaller to “fit”. Even with those inconsistencies, I still think they make a cute pair!

I plan to make giclées of “Tinkerbell” and “Puff” soon.

Here are the final paintings: