Product of Lebanon

I found a wine shop that sells this Lebanese wine, so I bought a few bottles, because my Grandmother's dad is Lebanese, so I'm always interested in family heritage, culture, etc. I was hoping the label would come off easily(and, yay, it did!) so i could use it in this spread.

I have all these fabulous photos of my grandma and her friends cheesing for the camera, just being girls. This is one of my favorites, so I painted it here. She loves to tell me that her bikini was red, so I knew it would be perfect with the colors of the label...

Pin-Up #7

Just a little quickie partial gal. I've been working on some other pieces, so these got put to the side for a minute, however, i can't improve if i don't practice, so even if it's little, it's going to get done.

I've been liking how some of the old pin-up pictures have just quick brush strokes of color here and there, rather than coloring the whole thing, so I thought i'd give it a try.

Chick #6

This is a study from Taschen's The Great American Pin-Up. The original artist is Al Buell. Other than making her a little too skinny(maybe she needs some of my Hershey's Miniatures...I mean I'm just sayin...), I'm really pleased with this one.

Thanks to Owen at Everyday Matters, for the tip to put a little soap in my water to help break down the wax coating on the pages....so now any painting boo-boo's are strictly due to the operator of the brush, rather than the supplies being faulty. ; )

Hershey's Miniatures

So, if you start one moley, why not start 2? ; ) I had a small watercolor one, and i had some hershey's miniatures, so i painted them. I am not an experienced watercolorist, but i had ordered a ridiculously large amount of Daniel Smith watercolors, and there's no time like the present to try them out. I actually like how this turned out. My Special Dark bar is a little rough, but, that's ok. I played, i learned, and that's what counts. I need to focus some attention on learning more about mixing colors, because generally I just paint straight out of the tube...I know! The Horror!! but, hey, sometimes i just like the color that's in the tube. what can i say. the other thing i might need to pay a little more attention to is light sources and shadows...but i have an excuse for this piece...i ate them before i actually painted the sketch...LOL