Which Witch?

I'm beginning to think that 2009 will be remembered as my year of the witch! I can't help it, I love painting them! This lovely magical girl looks a little like Angelina Jolie, don't you think?

Once again, thanks to the inspiration of Molly Harrison and her wicca art.

A very happy customer went home with this special (and large! must have weighed 12 lbs at least!) pumpkin at the We Love Long Beach pancake breakfast last Saturday morning. The We Love Long Beach folks are nice enough to let me show up and face paint at their community events, and it's a lot of fun for me to connect with families in my own home town. I grew up in Long Beach Ca and I think it's still one of the most beautiful coastal cities in southern. California.

I have more witches in store for 2009, keep your eye out for future blog posts and pics.

My pumpkins for sale at the Farmers Market Long Beach!

I am excited to say that I have a booth all October long at the Local Harvest Farmers Market on Wednesdays. It is held in the Long Beach Marine Stadium parking lot from 3 pm to 7 pm.

I am doing face painting as well as selling pumpkins, so if you are local to Long Beach, California please come on down and say hello! Shop for fresh local produce and baked goods while you're at the market, and of course take a look at my painted pumpkins. Maybe you'll decide to take one home for Halloween!

The faces shown here were painted by myself and my business partner Lara Johnson. If you'd like to see more pictures of my face painting and or/henna art please go to our website http://www.oasisarts.net/

Enchanting

This lovely witch is an homage to one of my favorite fantasy artists Molly Harrison. I have her "pagan" calendar and I love her style! She also paints mermaids, fairies, dragons, cats, and many other fantastical beings. Thanks for all the inspiration, Molly.

I like the way the colors on this all work together. I like the way her hat pops up out of the frame. I like the way her hair turned out: I added both low lights and highlights to the basic hair color which gave it a lot of dimension. I also tried a new technique on the moon: I painted the white circle first, and once that was dry I put a wash of watered down paint on top in both a light blue and a grey. The pink background is also done with a watered down color wash. I wanted the background to kind of recede so I tried to do a very soft color behind the subject.

All in all, I'm very happy with the way this witch turned out. Now if only I could get my hair color to be that pretty and dimensional...

Love in the Graveyard

Here is another example of a silhouette design. Two black cats are sitting in the grave yard, their tails curled up and over and entwined to form a heart. How sweet is that? Above them in the night sky are some heart shaped bats and spooky tree branches, and a grinning Jack o' Lantern gives them a knowing smile from the side of the scene. It just goes to show that it's not where you are, it's who you're with that makes all the difference in the world. Ah, love!

This pumpkin actually photographed beautifully. The colors in the camera flash look gorgeous! Again, some of the details around the edges are lost, like a headstone and the cemetery fencing, but what are you gong to do? It happens when you try to take a 2 D image of a 3 D object.

Gothic style Tinkerbell

Even Tink likes to get dressed up for Halloween! I colored her hair blue-black, made her dress grey and black, put some spider web thigh-high stockings on her, and some green and blue striped socks and arm covers? arm socks? fingerless gloves? What do you call those garments? I even made her wings over so they look good and spooky. I think she came out super cute!

Since I wanted to keep things suitably dark I kept the glitter on this design to a minimum, mostly just on her spider web wings and a touch on the highlights of the dress and wand.

I tried to figure out something else to put in this picture since I thought Tink looked a little lonely all by herself, but nothing I tried seemed quite right and I ended up rubbing off all the ideas I tried. Maybe on my next try at a dark Tinkerbell I'll figure out how to incorporate her into some sort of scene or environment.

So if Tinkerbell's magic pixie dust normally gives you the ability to fly if you think happy thoughts, I wonder what gothie Tink's pixie dust does for you? Maybe I don't want to know...