First Complete Belfast Babe

I worked on this piece yesterday and today. It's the the first completed piece of a new series of girls in front of local landmarks, tentatively called "Belfast Babes". She's standing in front of Belfast Castle. I photographed this at night, so the lighting isn't great. The colour of the dress is more accurate in the detail shots.

I have included some work in progress shots every several stages from the sketch (see sketch in yesterday's post) to completion. For the dress, I printed out history on the castle in a nice font and punched different size circles from it, collaging both the circles and the leftover paper. I also used silver card, mesh (my new found love) and then randomly spread gesso over it. The castle is done with many, many layers of Caran D'Ache Neocolor water soluble crayons and acrylic paint. I wanted the sky to have a very soft, dreamy, yet smooth effect so I used a combination of acrylic paint and porcelain paint. This was an experiment that was very successful. This piece is the 4th Belfast Babe that I sketched, but the 1st I actually painted on, so I have a few more waiting to be painted.