Flower Child Mixed Media

I finally finished this painting...though it almost turned out to be a disaster. I had finished most of it a week ago in the studio, but I wanted to look at it again over the weekend and see if I wanted to add any final details to my Flower Child. I decided on a few finishing touches, so I began to shake up one of my blue paint pens--and as I almost finished that, the pen flew out of my hand, the lid came off, and blue paint went all over my girls face and hair! Can you say, PANIC?! 

I went into bionic mode and grabbed some baby wipes and was able to wipe off most of the paint, thank goodness. I did a little smearing in the process, and some small bits of paint did not come off. I had to do a little fixing, but for the most part I was able to fix the damage--but dang, that was close. I really love this painting, and for a minute there, I thought I'd completely ruined it. Yowza!

Anyway, here's my Flower Child Mixed Media portrait. That almost wasn't.  :)

Flower Child Mixed Media

I did the girl first on watercolor paper. That was kind of a mistake because the paper was too thick. And, as I discovered during the process, it does not like to be glued down! But I didn't seem to have any decent drawing paper, so I grabbed what I had. Live and learn. Her face was done primarily with Neocolor crayons, but there is some acrylic here and there as well. Her shirt is embellished scrapbook paper. The background is acrylics rolled on with brayers--then flowers added on top with paint pens. And the dangling stars, hearts, and moons were a stencil and I embellished them with paint. I did the word, Beautiful, freehand. I had planned to use a stencil I got for that, but it didn't fit right in the space, so I just winged it. Finally, the bird...I drew that little gal as well and used paint pen to fill her in.

I love how this turned out. Thank goodness I didn't ruin her!