LifeBook Week31: Sisterhood

The original title for this LifeBook lesson by Gillian Lee Smith was 'We all cast shadows'. This is my take on it from a different angle and call it 'Sisterhood' celebrating the sharing/caring nature of our female dominated art communities. This is probably as close as I can get to having sisters!

I love, love, love Gillian's muted colour palette and unique style of painting. She showed us how to texture and distress the background by using a rough, household brush for the initial layer of gesso and then scratch some scribbles in it with an embossing tool. I really liked how my background turned out. Luckily, I remembered to take a photo of it!

Gillian also gave us  a great tip on how to transfer imagery found online with use of carbon paper. This has really helped me build my composition. It gives you a rough basis to work with and takes the guesswork out of trying to get the proportions and perspectives right. I used these classic paintings by da Vinci to help me with my figures.

I also used some drawings found online for the windows and leaves. Although you could draw these by hand, I find it easier to use a template to match the size and placement of multiple elements. It just makes life easier! Here's my finished piece, complete with the imagery:

I really enjoyed this style of painting and would like to try it again in the future.

It wasn't as difficult as I first thought!