{Progression of a Painting}

My sister Annette K. Larsen just published her first book last week! 

'Just Ella' by Annette K. Larsen

It's available on Kindle right now and will be available in paperback by next week.

She asked me/I offered....or begged.... :) to do the cover art for it.

It was the hardest painting I've ever attempted. I wanted to give up several times. I'm really grateful for my painter father who when I texted him and said I just couldn't possibly do it and I honestly couldn't keep going just said simply, "Try one more time."

Bless him. 

Since it took so long I have a pretty complete progression of the painting in pictures. 

So I thought I'd share them. 

Just have to say, my process is completely different than what I was taught in my college classes...They tried to beat it out of me, but it just didn't happen. :) 

So here we go!

Started with the sky.

(Don't let the easel fool you. This was the only time I used it during the entire process. :) 

 See? I was back down on the floor again for this one:

Underpainting for the tower.

 This was interesting to paint. You don't do just greys using white and black. It has peaches, pinks, purples and blues.

 I love painting greenery. I love green anyway so I was excited for this phase. 

 Adding the underpainting for the doors...

Then the underpainting for the grass and doors.

 I did the detail on the doors during general conference. They now always remind me of President Monson's talk. :)

 I enjoyed adding this detail and 'cutting' out the circle in the door. And then adding the wood grain is always fun. (Seriously though, I really enjoy painting wood. :)

 Starting Ella's hair

 Trying to figure out her dress and took a break on her hair...

 Lightened up her hair, added arms, hands, sleeves and changed her skirts.

 After a lot of deliberation and a couple converstaions and lots of texting Annette, we found a new skirt style we liked better. 

 The final product: 

I'll do another post to show what the actual book cover looks like!

{Nursery Wall Murals}

Recently I've done a few wall murals. 

My friend Whitney is pregnant with a little girl and getting so so excited for her arrival!

She decided on a monkey theme for the nursery and had all the bedding and everything and she found a vinyl wall design to match. 

Problem was, the site looked not super trustworthy and it would be shipping from overseas. Plus it was kind of pricey. 

So we chatted and I told her I could easily just paint it onto the wall.

We changed it a bit from the original vinyl idea so it would be how Whitney wanted it. 

The monkey even has a little bow!

I wish I had a picture of when we were actually painting it! Whitney didn't want to just sit while I painted so she did a lot of the filling in on the circles. But the poor girl was hugely pregnant and standing on a stool. Oh man did she make me nervous but she's a rockstar. :) It was a super fun project to do and I'd love to do it again! :)