Second Nutcracker Illustration

    As christmas comes closer and I am consumed by a thousand small errands, tasks, and celebrations, I have been unable to write quite as many blog posts as usual. I believe that the running around may be winding down but in the meantime I wanted to share the steps for my second nutcracker. This one is actually purple and was chosen by one of my children when they were young because it was, 'so beautiful'.

   As per usual I sketched it out in advance and then worked on it colour by colour adding the fluffy hair at the end.

 I work from life on these, even though there are many pictures available of beautiful nutcrackers.

Here I have done part of the hair and begun the second.

   I added a bit of detail to the edges with a fine liner as I felt that the paper was to rough to allow for the precision I wished for in paint.

   I have decided to leave the guiding lines as I feel it makes it look more like a piece of art and less like it is simply printed.

   Here are the two side by side- They are the same size even though the right one appears larger since it is up on the edge of the ledge.

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