It’s Wednesday morning and I’m four days past my due date. I’m just sitting around waiting and trying to stay as relaxed as possible. At this point I figure I should try to be productive while I wait to go to the doctor later. So, I thought I’d share my inspiration for my new mini series that I started the other day after my husband and I went to his grandmother’s house to go for a swim. I use the term swim very loosely since lately all I want to do is float around belly down attempting as little activity as possible. I’ve been lucky to have access to her pool because it has been the best form of relaxation on these super hot July days. While enjoying the cool water I thought to myself, “Floating around the pool enjoying a leisurely Saturday morning is something I could do everyday.” So the idea for Ladies of Leisure mini series was born, and I just had to decide how I’d create it.
When I got home from my floating session I got right to work sketching, and making some decisions on if I’d do large paintings or small quick ones. When I was satisfied with my sketch I decided that I would make this a printed series, so I transferred the drawing to some Speedball Speedy Carve rubber stamp material and carved out the little lady with my favorite Flexcut micro-v carving tool. When I finished, I did a little trial run printing and painting the little lady of leisure in my sketchbook. When printing her I used acid free archival ink and to paint the details I used my favorite paint, Turner Acryl Gouache. This acrylic gouache paint is amazing because it is opaque, easy to layer, comes in a wide array of beautiful colors and dries to a matte finish that I absolutely love. I was quite pleased with the final results!
Creating a mini printing block is awesome and almost feels like cheating because I can use it over and over again. But, it’s nice to have a little head start anytime I want to paint one of these little ladies. The sketch I drew out was rather small so these are printed and painted on 4×4 inch paper I had cut for another mini project, but that idea will be saved for another day and post.
What I love most about these little ladies of leisure is that there are endless possibilities for different hairstyles, bathing suits and float designs. Also, since the process yields such a small treasure I can easily sit down and create one from start to finish in less than 20 minutes, which will be great once baby arrives to help me keep my creative juices flowing.
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Hand Lettering . Murals . Illustrations 