Saturday, May 28, 2011

Becca's Unicorn




Hey all! Here's my unicorn! I had a great time working on this one. It was a challenge, but I got it to a place where I'm happy with it. I looked a lot at Charles Vess and James Jean's work (esp his Fables cover art) for color palette ideas and general inspiration on this piece.

Question - the colors look a bit dull on my monitor - how do they look to you?

Owen's Unicorn


Finally I have finished my Unicorn painting.  I really loved working on this piece, so I wanted it to be the best it could be, I reworked and repainted far more than I usual.  There should be a second layer to all my paintings, but I rarely have the time.  I hope this comes off as a good young adult or children's book type piece.
Lately I have been using a very limited palette of Raw Umber, Ult. Blue, Yellow Ochre, Naples Yellow,  a bit of Burnt Sienna, Titanium White and Ivory Black, and maybe a few other colors for the flowers.  The outcome feels very natural to me.  
If anyone looks at the Unicorn in Captivity Tapestry from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you can see that I modeled the flowers, unicorn, and pomegranate tree on that piece.  I still think that's probably the best, most sophisticated unicorn.  My fiance has a poster of it in our living room.  What a great piece.

The Unicorn, 21"x16", Oil on Paper on Masonite, 2011. 

Friday, May 6, 2011

Lis's Final: The Light in the Weald


Hey! Here is my unicorn final. I actually ended up using acrylic, and I really enjoyed it!! I printed the image on watercolor paper, put a green wash down, then covered it in a few layers of matte medium. I then worked with washes of acrylic (and some opaque acrylic in the light areas), before spraying it with varnish. Took a little longer than my watercolor work, but overall I am pleased. I want to work this way again! Unicorns <3...

It ended up quite different from my color comp... but that's how it goes with me. I always get more saturated with my colors than I intend. I guess that's my style? It's not as ominous in feeling... more Disney-esque. But I love Disney so it's cool. Tried color correcting in photoshop to make it more like my comp, but I like this.