The Running Paintbrush: A Little Pixie Dust

I never know when to quit! Coming off my high of painting the Hummingbirds (happy now, mom?), I figured I'd do it again, but this time with Tinkerbell. Ugh. Someone please remind me to never do the same painting twice in a row again! I've done it a few times before, and each time I swear it will be different. "What? Get tired of it? Moi!?"
And every time, I'm so ready for it to be done by the time the second brushstroke has hit the canvas. Since I'm naturally impatient and have a tendency to like to rush through things (well, it works with races!), this is my painting downfall.

So, last week after I finished up The Hummingbirds, I started laying the ground work for the Tinkerbell version. First, I sketched out various poses of Tinkerbell to find the best one for the painting.

I didn't want to just plop her in the middle of the painting with no reason to be there. I had to give her a story, some purpose for being in the middle of a flowerly jungle. I decided she would be visiting her magical butterfly friends.

I was really happy with my results. In general, drawing Disney's human characters is very difficult. You have to get them just so, one line a fraction of a centimeter off can make the character go from Disney Character to Looks Like Disney Character. Add to it that its almost impossible to find pictures or shots of Disney human characters looking straight forward (leaving you to have to draw eyes that aren't identical) and its enough to make you tear your hair out!

I went with the top right Tink, which I then kept sketching out smaller and smaller until I thought I had the best size for the piece. My brilliant idea was that I'd paint the background, then cut out the Tink and paint around it in white to get the silhouette. Then it would be smooth sailing with just sketching in her features then painting over. Ha! Smooth sailing my butt.

First, I painted the background....

Then I placed my cutouts on to determine where I'd place Tink...

And that's when the rough waters began. I realized that once I started sketching her features into the Tink shape, it wasn't going to work. As usual, I started to draw slightly larger than the shape called for (another one of my bad habits). So, since I really liked how I got her eyes and didn't want to mess with having to do them again, I repainted her shape free hand to get her body to fit her newly larger face. This was a bit nerve-racking because "sketching" with a flexible paintbrush is much more difficult than sturdy pencil. And paintbrushes don't come with erasers. Luckily, I think my past weekend of drawing her over and over again got her ingrained in my head, and I was able to pull it off no problem! Phew!

Then yesterday, I brought her to life....and what better way to paint Disney than while wearing the most cuddly and soft Hello Kitty bath towel dress in the whooooole world?!