Step by Step Snow White painting and some free Snow White images

For years, I've admired Kim's sense of style and her graciousness in hosting an art event.  Her gatherings are always pure perfection.  Last year, I was honored to be asked to paint a photography backdrop for her Tiffany event and now, I'm just tickled pink to have my original artwork as the button for An Enchanted Affair.

It's a thrill to be teaching there too! Right now, I'm totally swamped getting ready for this class, and making kits. 

But counting out ribbon, cutting lace and paper, gets boring. So, I'm taking a break to write about how I did the painting for the event button.

 

The first step was to look at "moody" Snow White inspiration pictures.  Kim didn't want the cheery, Disney version of the princess.

My first sketch was too sweet. 

Kim and I were collaborating by email, as I'd sketch, I'd snap an IPhone picture and send it off, she'd get right back with me and I'd adjust as we conversed.  Technology sure makes long distance partnerships go smoothly!

Snow's face was made less cutey pie, and she lost the crown.

Then, Kim played around with digital framing and decided this sketch would work. (please ignore the date, this was early planning and it changed to later in the month)

I began adding color with acrylic craft paints.  The back ground is first, with soft tones, to make it seem further away.  As I worked toward the foreground, colors got brighter and sharper. 

Snow White and the trees she is standing under were last to be done, since they were in the very front.

 Here is my finished painting.

But is it really finished?

I did some digital editing to it and made some minor tweaks that enhanced it. 

I used Orton effect, and darkened edges, cleaned up some lines, and a couple of other small touch ups.

Kim used photoshop to add some sparkle, and a vintage frame to give it a story book feel.

Like I said before, technology is great!

I've mentioned in an earlier post that I was knee deep in vintage fairy tale books, and can't stop buying them. But before I amassed enough to share original pages with the students in the class, I scanned a few books to print images to give them instead. Now, I don't need to do that, since I have so many vintage pages to tear out and share.

So, I'll share these scanned pictures with you.

Simply click on the image, open in a larger window, and save it to your computer to print.  These are all from the first book that I bought and I like  that they are not the cutesy Disney version either.   None of the books I found were from Walt, all are a bit different, or even older than his princess story.

If you'd rather have the originals, well there are plenty of the them! Maybe I'll see you in the California class? Contact Kim for details.

Or if you'd like to visit me, here at the Cottage to take a class?  Registration for Birdsong 3 is open to the public on Monday.  Til then, returning guests and past sponsors get first shot at signing up.