It's been a while since I have done a Fantasy painting. I have been really craving the idea of painting something different from my usual pet portraits. This is a digital painting of a young woman who has stepped into a magical forest that is enchanted by fairies.
I started by simply looking at a wide variety of stock images and eventually started gathering ideas for what I wanted. I often start out with tons of images until something starts to click and an idea is formed.
As soon as I found the photo of this young woman, I wanted to put her in an enchanted forest. The challenge was how to turn everything into a painting and create a magical, mystical atmosphere. When I first started with the painting the pose of the girl was just like in the reference photo. While I was working on the painting, I realized that one of her arms was just way too distracting. So I turned the reference photo around until I ended up with a more dynamic pose.
I used Photoshop Overlays to create fairy dust. There was a lot of trial and error involved until I got the desired result. I learned a while back that painting less, sometimes says more. That's what happened with the fairies. They are basically just some odd wing-shaped beings, without much any detail. Now I might just be imagining that everyone looks at them and says "Oh yes, those are fairies!" IF I had added detail, you would not look at that pretty girl though. I pulled out every trick I knew from painting oil paintings, to get the flesh tones to come alive. I actually have to work on a new commission of a cat portrait. So I a happy that this project got finished just in time. The painting is available as prints from my store.
