Ponyo

When I was asked to paint a picture for a client's nursery, I was happy and honored. That's a very special little place for a very special little person....the pressure was on!

I was asked to paint a scene from Ponyo, a Japanese fantasy cartoon about a goldfish who befriends a boy and wishes to become a human girl. I'd never heard of it, but it sounds and looks cute. The writer says he was inspired by The Little Mermaid and the movie is distributed by Disney...so there's 2 ties to the mouse house, so it must be great! :-)

Here's the screen shot from the film I was asked to paint:

And here's my take:

 



Normally, I don't sketch out every single line and detail, but since this is for a client, I wanted to make sure I got every wave and section right.

 

I knew this painting was going to take extra time because blues are one of the colors that really need a second coat. This can get frustrating when you mix just the right shade, only to know you didn't mix enough to do another layer...and good luck mixing it exactly again. I was starting to go batty trying to mix the blues just slightly different from the blues next to it. If you look closely at the original, there really are quite a lot of different shades of blue going on. Very subtley different. Arrrrrrg!

But it was all worth it, I think it turned out pretty awesome. I was asked to paint Ponyo and her sister's clothing a deeper shade of red, to match the trim that will be on the walls of the nursery, but otherwise, I think it looks pretty spot on to the original!

Ponyo
18" x 24" original acrylic painting on gallery-wrapped canvas

As always, I'm frustrated with how the picture of the painting really doesn't do the real live thing justice. But, it really is a beautiful painting.

On to the next piece!