(it reads “she always knew she was strong.”)

i’m feeling a bit sassy and experimental and this is how it played out – in a painting that feels like a major departure for me, but i also really love it. i’ve long been a fan of faber castell pitt pens, but i’ve never tried doing an entire face with them, so i decided to give it a try with their fat skin tone pens/markers, and i’m so loving them! super easy to blend, both on the gesso board and the clay board. speaking of clayboard, i’ve never painted on it before and i’m loving that stuff, too. super smooth – the paint (and pens) go on it like butter. what else? the hair. i really loved the lines drawn in the piece that mati and i did together and wanted to pull that in a bit on this one, but still with the cute up-do that i love so much. also, still loving claudine’s paints and colors. i’ve barely used my stash of golden paint since discovering her line. and i’m trying to incorporate a bit more handwriting these days, too. oh yes, and it was fun to play with painting flat, but i’ll admit it took most of my might not to slap on a bit of collage or whip out the brayer or messy it up a bit with texture. but still, i love it. i really do.

i’m keeping this one for myself (to go on the wall), but i’ll have a couple similar ones for tomorrow’s online sale (thursday, 10am PST. 19 original paintings. in my etsy shop. a sale.).