The Faery Queen - stage 1

The subject of the painting is the lovely Naomi who indeed considers herself to be one of the Faery Folk so although it seems on the surface to be purely a fantasy painting it is in fact a portrait of somebody I am fortunate to know. It was always conceived to be a picture based on reds and golds to which end I have bought some gold leaf which I will use sparingly along with my bronze powders and metallic paints. The influences for this picture are artists that have used gold in their work; the first one is Gustav Klimt who was a huge inspiration for my work in the1990s and the contemporary artists Brad Kunkle and Joan Lossel.
This stage just shows the "drawing " up of the basic figure with a small bristle brush using my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin.