Stained Glass Queen - A Painting

Recently I have had a bit more time for the creative pursuits. This could be due to the fact that the holidays are over or perhaps because we have settled into a more regular routine here at home. Whatever the case may be, I am quite happy about being able to spend extra time doing what I like to do.
Today's post features a painting that I did these past few weeks. Inspired by stain glass windows, a painting I saw at my cousin's house and old religious artwork - I hope you will enjoy it!

 Before starting this painting I drew a sketch of what I wanted it to look like. I find it helps to keep me on track and focused on what the finished product should look like. I don't always do a sketch though.

  

Here we have all of my paints ready to go. I like to use old lids as paint palettes, they clean off really easily.

 

Lighter colours to darker colours is the way I like to paint. Here we have the white being painted in. I drew a sketch in pencil behind of some of the basic areas. Normally I would never use pencil as it shows through but because I was lining this painting with black (like stained glass) I knew it wouldn't really matter.

 Yellow and light brown.

 

Here we have some of the outline started and more colour added with light blue and magenta.

 

Now you can really see the painting coming to life. Lots of colour has been added as well as some of the shading in the background and the face.

 As I was working on filling in the colour I couldn't help but notice that I really disliked the shape of the face. The chin appeared much too wide for the face and the lips seemed too high and too red. These things would definitely need to be fixed.Lots of highlights have been added as well as some more shading.

I decided to finish all of the outlining before moving on to fix the face. 

And finally - the fix.

 Her face looks much softer now, much more serene. I am really pleased with how all of this turned out - I already have it hung up in my home.

I have plans in the near future to paint a very large painting. Most of my work to date has been under 20x24 and it would be a nice challenge to take on a bigger canvas I think.
Don't worry - I promise to let you know how things go along the way.
Ciao,