Masquerade

Look who's ready for the masquerade ball! I love fairies, don't you? The Fair Folk are a fun subject to paint.

I adore this design! The fairy is winsome, her hair is wild, and her mask is lovely. What's not to like? Again, I was hoping to keep this one and enjoy it all autumn, but alas, this pumpkin was bought toot sweet (that's pumpkin-painter talk for "pretty darn quick") and went home with a farmers market shopper. I'm sure they'll be very happy together. Maybe I'll paint myself another one...

I decided to decorate the fairy's mask with red and orange fall leaves and white birch twigs. I thought the colors stood out nicely in front of her dark hair. I used metallic gold paint for her wings and mask which took quite a few coats to get good coverage and shine, but I think it was worth the extra painting and drying-between-coats time.

Today is the day after Halloween and I am planning on buying a few more pumpkins today so I can do some more fall theme designs for my portfolio. I can't imagine that I'll sell any, but I'll be happy to gift my family and friends with autumn/thanksgiving painted pumpkins for their yards or dinner tables.

Also stay tuned for a step-by-step tutorial on where I get my inspiration, how I paint my designs, what products I use, etc...

Hello Kitty - the dark side

How adorable is Hello Kitty as a little devil? I bought some Hello Kitty stickers that had her dressed in different Halloween costumes and I thought this picture was perfect for a small pumpkin. Hello Kitty pumpkin found a happy home with a little girl and her Mom who are both Hello Kitty collectors. Nice.

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.

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...

Don't fear the Reaper

I said, More Cowbell Baby!

Yes, he's coming for us all so why worry? Actually I rather like the idea of death looking like young Robert Redford in that old Twilight Zone episode "Nothing In The Dark". Now there is a "Crossing Over" a girl can enjoy!

This fellow is a little more scary. I found this design on a patch of all places. It just goes to show that you can find inspiration in a lot of places. I loved the perspective of this design, with the reaper's bony hand prominent in the foreground and his scythe up over his head. Nice! I chose a vibrant dark blue for his robe because I thought it would add the right amount of punch to the picture while still looking suitably dark.

The painting is done in plain old acrylic craft paint and coated with a spray acrylic sealer top coat.

How I started painting pumpkins

A couple of years ago I saw some really basic painted pumpkins, and I thought, I can do that! I am a professional face painter so I already had some experience painting on a rounded surface.

At the time I had a small nephew who was OBSESSED with pumpkins. I'm not kidding. He wanted to look at google search pictures of them, he talked about them all the time, he even had a small sugar pumpkin that he took in his crib with him when he went to sleep. It was really cute, actually. One of my first painted pumpkins was a jack o' lantern face for him. I did it with acrylic paint and put an clear acrylic spray sealer on it once it was dry. So cute, don't you think?

Isaac's pumpkin

He was pretty excited when he got it!

Lots of traditional Halloween designs make great subject matter for pumpkin paintings. Witches, both cute and sexy style:

I love this little blue ghost:

And these "Boo" ghosts as well!

I tried some purple bats flying across the full moon:

In addition to the paint, I have made liberal use of glitter glue on most of these designs. It's difficult to tell from the pictures but most of these pumpkins have a sparkly coating on them that adds another dimension to the painting.

It's tough to take pictures of the pumpkin paintings at all! The rounded surface of the pumpkin make it difficult to near impossible to show the whole design on any of these pumpkins. Half of the painting is curved away from the camera lens, and not in the picture at all darn it.