Welcome to the second part of my Early Huevember series. The first part is: Early Huevember 2022: Days 1 to 6. While the official Huevember Challenge doesn’t start for a couple of weeks from this posting, I figured the past month was as good a time as any to give it a shot. That and November will likely be busy since that is also when National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) happens. That said, there are still a couple weeks to go, so I still might decide to do the official Huevember challenge anyway. However, for now, on to the art!
Overview
I had a pretty good time with this set of paintings. There were definitely some where it took a while to figure out what I was going to paint, but others came to me almost immediately. One other thing with this second set of paintings is that I started to branch into things that were a bit different from what I had done before with painting (namely landscapes and close up animal paintings). Mostly, I was feeling the urge to do something different. As such, I had a lot of fun with these paintings.
Days 7 to 12
You can find the individual paintings below, with some assorted blurbs from my experience of painting them.
Day 7: “Magical Campfire”
When I saw this orange (the final one of the challenge), I wanted to do something with flames. I figured a campfire would be a fun way to test out creating fire, and I think it turned out well. I did decide to do something a little different, since fire seems like a decent way to add some magical elements. I opted for some animals that I could do with fairly simple outlines: a bird, a butterfly, and (of course) a salamander.
Day 8: “Red Panda Party”
This one took a little while to find a subject for this painting. After a bit of discussion (and a good bit of staring at the color selector), my husband suggested a red panda. That seemed like a good option, but as I started trying to find a reference image, I found several images of red pandas that either gave a good view of the face or a good view of the tail and body. I figured the easiest way to handle that was to create a composite image of several red pandas. Thus the red panda party was born.
Day 9: “Keep ‘Em Close”
This color was the only proper red out of the Huevember selection. I immediately had playing cards pop into my head. Everything else came from that. I was aiming for a particular vibe, and overall I think I achieved it. Some of the details (like the background) didn’t get planned until I started working on this one, and there were several things (like the chips) that took a bit of time to figure out how to do with Krita (the program I used). That said, I really think the effort was worth it, and I am pleased with how this worked out.
Day 10: “Payment for Services Rendered.”
Now that we are into the “pink” range, I was having trouble figuring out what to do. Beyond the ideas of flowers or ribbons, some of the suggestions my husband provided were cherry blossoms, gemstones, and a dragon. All of those kind of informed this painting. I thought it would be funny to have a raven being paid by a dragon for something. Thus, the title.
Day 11: “Gothic in Pink”
The color for this day was pink, and again came assorted suggestions of flowers and gemstones, but I wanted to do something different here. I thought it would be funny to do something gothic, and the idea began to take shape. I thought “what are standard gothic elements?” Crescent moon, Owl, Castle, Lightning, Gas lamps. Check, check, check, check, check…
I am both pleased and amused with how this one turned out.
Day 12: “Gathering under the Sea”
So, for the previous couple days, my husband was suggesting a conch, since they tend to be kind of pinkish. He also suggest a pearl. I slowly had the idea of a variety of sea life with some ruins of some sort in the back. A couple items up front for interest and framing. I wanted a little bit of a mystical take on it, so I opted for a ceiling made of crystals shining with light. I think this one turned out fairly well.
Final Thoughts
With this set of paintings, I started to try some new things. I knew I wanted to do something different, and I tried to take advantage of the ideas that were starting to flow. Some of the hues gave me a bit of trouble when it came to picking a topic, but overall things went nicely. I think this is where I started having to think a bit more about the colors I was using since green was already gone, and I was shifting away from oranges and browns (the more natural scenery colors). I also wanted to avoid using too much of the greyscale where possible. I am still learning, so there are things about some of these that I would have liked to do a bit different, but I decided that since this was a daily challenge, I would stop tweaking things once the day was done. I did start applying some of the techniques I learned early on to later paintings so that was spiffy.
I think that’s everything for this post. Stay tuned for the next set of paintings!
~ Theresa
Other posts in this series (links will be added as the entries are posted):
- Early Huevember 2022: Days 1 to 6
- Early Huevember 2022: Days 7 to 12
- Early Huevember 2022: Days 13 to 18
- Early Huevember 2022: Days 19 to 24
- Early Huevember 2022: Days 25 to 30
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