Art & Illustration
Glass House
Details, details, details...
One day a few months ago, several ideas came to me while I was meditating... When I could move again, I quickly grabbed my sketchbook and jotted down the ideas as quickly as I could (see the left sketch below). The first one I attempted was the Wood Sprite idea at the bottom (you can click here to see the progress of that painting). The turtle in the mermaid's hand ended up included in my recent Mother's Day card, and the other two I saved for later because, honestly, I was a little intimidated by them. Finally, I had finished my last commissions/projects, and I found myself with time to start a new painting. I went back to these sketches and decided to challenge myself. I picked the woman in the glass house.
One of my favorite things to visualize while I'm meditating are cozy places I'd love to inhabit. Oftentimes they involve cozy nooks with a sofa, a book, tea, and sometimes a storm outside the window. I had a very colorful vision of a tropical oasis inside a huge glass house, with a small figure tucked away in a cozy corner. Just beyond the glass would be a huge snowstorm, which would contrast with the warm colors on the inside.
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First, I put the rough sketch into a new Photoshop document and started blocking out the perspective. Then, when I had the height right, I started blocking out where the window panes and stained glass would fit. I've always been a fan of curves, swirls and circles, so my stained glass ended up with a fairly
art-nouveau style.
Then, I went online and I found a bunch of photos of different plants that would typically thrive in a greenhouse environment. I wasn't too worried about which ones would actually be planted together in reality, but more what colors and shapes would work well together. I also researched for photos of Victorian glass houses, Victorian furniture, and early 1900s styles for the girl's dress. I did sketches of all the things I liked best and started compiling them in layers so I could move them into a composition I was happy with. I wasn't too worried about colors at this point, but I did want the girl to stand out, so that's why she's in purple.
When I was happy with the composition, I started cleaning it up. I have to be in the right frame of mind for this fairly tedious, exact work, but I had a good audiobook to listen to ("The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet" by Becky Chambers) and it went along fairly smoothly. I actually found myself enjoying the stained glass window bit, as it allowed me to work with the pen tool and experiment with the different shapes I could make.
To serve as a contrast to the clean, structured lines of the architecture, I kept the mark-making for the plants fairly loose and simple. I knew that the colors were going to play the main part in that area of the painting, so I let it alone.
I explored several positions for the girl on the couch, as I originally envisioned her engrossed in a book and curled up on the sofa. But she wouldn't sit still in the sketching phase, and I soon realized that she really just wanted to look out the window... so I let her!
Adding the color ended up being the hardest part in this painting. I didn't have a clear idea for the colors in the stained glass... I just had the blue snow, the tropical jungle plants, and the woman in a pink dress in my mind. But in actuality, the colors wouldn't work that way. I tried a green/yellow/red/orange pattern for the windows, but it blended in too much with the jungle. I tried pink, but then the girl was too color-coordinated with the room and started to disappear. The version on the left is a draft from after I had blocked in all of the base colors, but I was still playing with each element on its own and trying out different tones and hues. As you can see, the girl was in a yellow dress on a black couch for a while, but while the black helped accentuate the girl, I didn't like the corner being so dark.
Anyhoo, I kept playing around and finally I decided on...
Whew! I am so happy to be done with this painting. Don't get me wrong! I loved working on it! However, it was such a long process with so many details, I often felt overwhelmed. I'm very grateful to this painting for teaching me so many things and inspiring me to take on big challenges in my future work. I'm excited to start on the next one!
But what do you think? Do you like the way the colors ended up? Would you like to sit in this cozy spot? What would be your cozy spot if you could pick anywhere in the world? Let me know in the comments below! I look forward to hearing what you think!