Leanne Shawler, Artist

My challenge is done! This is the last portrait of my 52 Portraits in 52 Weeks challenge! I used a photo from unsplash to get the uptilted head angles correct. In the photo the eyes were closed, and I wanted them open. I realized at once I hadn't sketched the chin correctly but can you see what else is off? Yeah, I didn't either. Stay tuned. I went ahead and painted. My base colors were Liquitex cadmium-free red, smalt blue, cadmium yellow and titanium white in heavy body Golden acrylic paint. Her lips look fantastic, but the angle was wrong. Also she looked pretty grouchy and there was something else... but doesn't her nose look great? OK, so her right eye is half an inch south of her left. I painted over it entirely and sketched using a brown Stabilo-All pencil before painting it back in. I put some shadows in using watercolors (Moonglow, Shadow Violet by Daniel Smith) and then created a galaxy like sky using three different Martha Stewart paints in blu...

I love rose milk tea. It tastes so good. Since a place that sells it opened up on my way to work, I've been treating myself. Until recently. I don't love that it's in a plastic cup, sealed with plastic film and accessible to drink via a plastic straw. Sure, I could buy a reusable boba straw as I already have other reusable straws, but that's still a lot of plastic. For a while I've been taking my own cup to Starbucks to put my caramel frappuchino into -- and getting 10c off as well. However, I've been told I can't bring my own cup to get rose milk tea and I can't in good conscience continue with all that plastic. So for the last week, I've been making my own rose milk tea. I took a look at making iced tea and various rose milk tea recipes on the internet. I've been playing and to continue to play with the proportions a bit. And it's delicious. Just as good as, if not better, than a purchased drink. First thing in the morning, I ma...

This will be a short post, as I forgot to take progress shots. Oops. I used white and a selection of green Arteza acrylics, Golden Titanium Buff fluid acrylic, Jane Davenport's dark blue matte acrylic paint and two of her Ultimate brush pens (Suede and Aquadisiac), and a cream/ivory Posca pen. I, ah, may have up the brightness a bit much. Last one is going to be a two page spread and then it's off to play with other things, I already have a large 36" x 36" blank canvas waiting for me on an easel, and I have to varnish the finished Mary Magdalene painting...

This challenge is supposed to be 52 Portraits in 52 Weeks. Well, I am currently running ahead by about a month. I've two more to go! This one was inspired by a Facebook post sharing the story of a woman's skull with a golden orb embedded in her eye socket. It's the oldest artificial eye ever found. It's 5,000 years old. The woman was six foot tall. Well, this provoked a response in me -- an old one -- the impulse to take a snippet of history and make a whole novel out of it. In the end, an outline of her story was written into her hair. The painting started with some white gesso to strengthen the paper as it had been torn, and then I had some left over gold gesso on a brush as I had painted the sides of my Mary Magdalene painting. Then a pencil sketch: I started out with Jane Davenport's Matchmaker paint, using the darkest tones initially, and Titanium white for the highlights. I added another shade of the Matchmaker paint and a lot of Golden Fluid A...