ACEO: Bats In Flight: Completed September 12, 2010

ACEO: Bats In Flight
Originally uploaded by diannna-art
Acrylic paint on 2 1/2" x 3 1/2",
246# Strathmore Acid Free acrylic paper.

Halloween is next month and it is a holiday I enjoy. Thus, it has been on my mind and a Halloween sort of image made its way onto another of my art cards.

The day before.. I doodled some bats to see try to figure out how best to attempt to paint them. Then, I did a quick thumbnail sketch. After I knew what I had planned.. I set to painting the background. I wanted it to go from orange to dark purple. I mixed Primary Yellow with Primary Red for the orange and then blending upward with more red and finally mixed a little Primary Blue to create a dark purple. It was then left to dry for the night.

I had intended to paint the tops of a few trees and then place the bats in last. However, when I sat down with the Mars Black paint, I painted the bats first. I later found this worked in my favor as I was able to bend the tree limbs to point toward the bats and interact with them a bit more. It was a lot of fun to paint Halloween bats in flight.

ACEO: Midnight Jack O'Lantern: Painted September 4, 2010

ACEO: Midnight Jack O'Lantern
Originally uploaded by diannna-art
Acrylic paint on 2 1/2" x 3 1/2",
246# Strathmore Acid Free acrylic paper.

September has only just begun, but already Halloween keeps coming to mind. I love Halloween.. especially carving pumpkins. A relatively new tradition of mine is carving pumpkin pie as if it was going to be a Jack O'Lantern, and then eating it that night. So the image of a carved pumpkin is key to how I celebrate Halloween.

I never really thought my trees looked spooky, until I painted two near a glowing Jack O'Lantern. The glow from the carved pumpkin breaks my usual silhouette, but was a lot of fun to try. The night sky is a mix of Dioxazine Purple, Primary Blue and a hint of Titanium White to make the horizon a little lighter. The silhouette is Mars Black. The glow from the Jack O'Lantern is a layer of Titanium White with two shades of orange (Cadmium Red Deep Hue and Primary Yellow mixed together)