So, originally I conceived her to be a muse of passion, peace and poise, hence her name: "Aozora" (青空, blue sky). She stayed that way for the color pencil drawing, but for the oil painting she transformed into something else entirely. I call her the "Égérie verte" (green muse). I don't know her true name, but I do know her meaning: she embodies jealousy, pain, ire and delirium.

Here's the process:

I ended up taking a lot of photos of this piece because even though I spent what I thought was plenty of time laying out the composition beforehand, it still ended up lopsided, so I used my phone's photo editing app to constantly flip the photos.

Also, new studio! Turns out my phone can take panoramas (I'm not sure why the little panorama symbol appears on the photo...it doesn't on my computer):

So, what next? I dunno. I'm thinking of trying a new program called Art Rage--it's supposed to feel more painterly than Photoshop. Maybe I'll finish that darn comic I've been meaning to work on!

I was working on a study of this lovely model when I came across an awesome contest on James Gurney's blog. Now, I love Mucha and I love art nouveau, so I simply could not pass this up, and thus I decided to convert my study into a finished digital painting for the contest:

"Lionfish Shampoo" - digital painting
model credit: Chamberstock

I can't wait to see the other entries...I'm going to be in an art nouveau coma!