Hello Friends!

It took me a couple of nights to figure out how to draw these ballerinas from one of the dances in Swan Lake. I watched the dance from a production of the ballet on Youtube. When I saw them posed in this way, I paused it and did a rough sketch of them. Then I worked out how to draw them the size I wanted for the 12″x12″ canvas.

After I finished the drawing, I turned it over and used charcoal to color over the outlines of the dancers. Then I put that side down on the white canvas and drew over the drawing with pencil so it would transfer the charcoal to the canvas. And once I outlined it darker on the canvas, I did the painting in acrylics mixed with gloss mefium so it would be somewhat transparent to let the washi tape show through. I had already prepared the canvas with it before.

I was going to paint it with the same colors as my first one, but I ended up painting over most of the teal blue background with purple, streaking it to look like curtains, but leaving the yellow for stage lighting. And after I painted the ballerinas white, I decided to leave the washi tape on the canvas unpainted for their dresses.

I wanted to use the quinacridone magenta again, too, which made a bright stage. Then below that I painted the purple mixture over the magenta and put gray spots down for the “heads” in the audience.

I really had a lot of fun with this one!!

Have a wonderful day and give someone you love a big hug! 😀