Introducing Astrid

Posted on March 5, 2013 by janellmithani

Astrid is a fun and spunky gal! I am pretty sure I have had days when I had hair like this! 🙂

Astrid by Janell Mithani

Click here to see my portfolio of Manga characters.

Cleo is My Latest New Manga Character

Posted on February 22, 2013 by janellmithani

She is a nod to Cleopatra… Once I was about half way through creating her, I knew this would be her name.

Cleo by Janell Mithani

Her hair took a few hours to create. I have always wanted jet black hair. As a natural redhead, I guess I am attracted to the opposite of what I have. 🙂

Have a wonderful creative day, Janell

A Painting for My Husband…

Posted on January 21, 2013 by janellmithani

I painted this beach scene for my Husband for Christmas.

I finished it on Christmas Eve, just in time to pop it into a frame I had in the studio. He has always loved the “Woody” car with a surf board on the top. We have a lot of fun spotting them when we are hanging out at the beach.

I think this is the first time I have ever drawn and painted a car. I finally put the hanging hardware on the back of it this weekend so he can hang it up in his office.

Here are a couple pictures of the progress of the painting.

I am just beginning to get the palm trees sketched and painted in..

This is the painting of the beach, I just need to add the car.

With the car sketched in… I did a pretty detailed drawing in pencil on paper and then did the old-fashioned transfer of scribbling on the back of the paper with charcoal and tracing over my sketch to transfer the line drawing into my painting. It works great, I also sometimes use white charcoal or soft pastel if I am transferring onto a darker painted surface. If you mess up you can just brush it off with a paper towel. Also, if you don’t want charcoal all over the back of your sketch, you can take a photo copy of your sketch and use the copy for your transfer. I use this process a lot when I want to “Ink” one of my Manga drawings, too.

Wish you a wonderful creative day, Janell

Garden Cottage Painting

Posted on January 8, 2013 by janellmithani

Happy New Year! Here is a painting I made titled “Garden Cottage.”

I think I would like to escape to this little cottage and spend the day painting. 🙂 I am really enjoying acrylic painting again, I just started again three months ago after about a 20 year break. This is the second painting I did this past Fall. I have done other mixed media work and I am still experimenting with the style and brushwork I like best. But I think my style is emerging…

I didn’t get much painting done in December, although I did make a painting for my husband for Christmas. Of course, I finished it the day before and popped it into a frame I had out in the studio just in time to tuck it under the tree. I have switched to working in acrylics instead of oils and I like the faster drying time. I have always painted fast a furious! So working in acrylics goes along with my style and much easier cleanup. I am really liking the full body acrylics, especially the ones by Golden. And all the textures and mediums…

I also love to take pictures and have a huge library of images on my computer to choose from. So I have no loss of subject matter, now… just need to make more time to paint in 2013!

I have been looking over art books and studying different techniques and brushwork applications as I work on developing my style. I just love research, actually sometimes I think I get so wrapped up in research that I can’t seem to get time at my easel. Below is the painting on my easel at about 2/3 of the way finished so you can see a bit of my process. I did a lot of toning down of areas to bring the focal attention to the little cottage. I also added some yellow and warmed up the tone of the painting. The finished painting is on a panel with 3″ deep sides and is 11″ x 14″.