Ritratto di Bimba (Bella's Portrait) finished

It's done. And I think I sort of saved it.
Thank goodness for my husband's constructive criticisms and the mixed media approach that allowed me to correct at least partially my mistakes with pencils!

What did I change?
-Her eyes were/are not aligned. I used a dark brown pencil to redraw the lower and upper lids outlines to create the illusion of new boundaries.
-Her lips were vampire-like, way to red and dark, like if blood had congealed on them (yuk!). I used a white pastel pencil to tone down the redness.
-Her smile was sort of uncertain, so with a dark violet and brown pencils I pushed the corners of her mouth further sideways and upward.
-Then I used  dark and reddish brown pencils to define better her cheeks and the smile-puffiness under her eyes (what do you call those thigies?...8 month old kids cannot possibly have "bags" under their eyes!).
-After this, I darkened the left side of her face, because somehow it looked too broad before. This also, I think, helped giving a more 3-dimentional look to the face.
-I added wisps of hair here and there, to avoid the impression she was wearing a lopsided wig.
-Finally, I toned down the contour of her face and collar overlapping white pastel pencil to the too severe and bold multiliner sign.

I think that's about it.
I feel better about it, now...so I think I can safely hang it in Bella's room without making her cry in fear of creating an unpleasant "mommy thinks I am ugly" complex. ;)

Hope you guys are all happy and enjoying this beautiful September day. Hugs and kisses,
Astera and family!

Portrait of Bella in progress

Hei there! How are you guys? After my summer vacation, I came back to a ton of work, daycare-born weekly colds, and unavoidable evening exhaustion. The most stressful times are gone, though, so I have a measure of tranquility that allows me to draw again. In fact, I have picked up the portrait I started in June  and am finishing it.

Here is a glimpse to the work in progress:

I got stuck on the inks, because the lamp in the living room that I normally use to work broke and we needed to get a new one. That and the fact that after dinner I just wanted to curl up doze off while watching TV...

Once the inks were finished, the fun part began and coloring has been relatively fast.I enjoyed a lot coloring the dragon!

So, after coloring everything, I started working on the face, which is unusual. Usually, the face gets colored first, because I usually have a pretty clear idea of what I need to do and it's a lot of fun, plus I tell myself that if I make a mess I can start over by transferring everything and giving it another try without too much grief. Instead, this time I was so happy with the lineart that, modestly speaking, I had no doubt, the coloring of the face would be very easy. I started with the skin, with which I was pretty happy. Then I proceeded to the mouth and the eyes...which turned out way too dark...now she looked like a not-so-pretty vampire.  Plus, with colors, all the irregularities and symmetry issues that I could not see in the inks became very clear. Why do I always miss these flaws until the very last moment? Looking at it in the mirror (I know I should have done this ages ago!) showed all the problems even more obviously...how to fix them?

Night Flight Complete

As promised, here is the finished version of Night Flight!

Night Flight WIP

I am about to finish the second panel for Pit's theater. If  "The secret of the forest" could be considered the beginning  of the three young heroes' magical journey, this second piece, "Night flight" represents its ending. After many adventures, challenges, and discoveries, it's time to get back to the warm safety of home. Within the castle a portal will open that will return the children to their world. A few friends met along their winding road will accompany them to the threshold between the two universes.

This one took quite a while...May was a very busy month with work and spring related activities. But I am glad I'll be able to finish this in time for Pit's B-day.
Here is the WIP for this piece. Tomorrow I'll show you the finished version.

Here is the initial pencil drawing. It took me quite a while to draw all the tiny little houses on the shore. I am not very strong with horses, so I had to try several time before coming up with a decent Pegasus..still I suppose that my equine anatomy could use some improvement...;)

Of course this is the inking. I rather enjoyed this process, although the tip of my Microliner was at the end of its days and I had to change it half way through....so the thickness of the lines is rather unequal, but thankfully, once colored this is almost unnoticeable...;)

Here I started putting down some greys to define the shadowed areas and create a base that should keep my colors from going to bright and garish....(always fighting that battle...)

So, at this point I was regretting not leaving everything in black and white, as the sea seemed to overwhelm everything else. As I draw, I always get to a panic paralysis point. This was it in this case. I tried to downplay the sea adding tons of grey to the waves, which improved things a bit.

Getting there...the sky was fun...now the sea seems less predominant. Still there are a few details to complete. Hopefully, tomorrow "Night Flight" will be completed!