Tree with a Tail

Well this is it: the final painting (for now)! I hope you haven't been bored to tears by my semi-craftiness of late! I plan to do more paintings in the future, and YES they will most definitely end up on my blog. So be prepared!!

But for today, I give you my final Christmas painting: Kellie's!

Unlike every other painting I did, I had ABSOLUTELY NO idea what to do for Kellie! Originally I had planned on doing something VERY abstract...and VERY pink, but I wasn't very sure how much she would like that in the future (and I wanted her to like her painting for the rest of her life!). So I was stuck with a huge dilemma, which consequently put Kellie's painting at the bottom of the list.

When I finally did get around to Kellie's painting, I made some huge changes. I decided that blue-green was more her color (not to mention a more lasting color). And I made the executive decision to forgo the abstract look all together. Whew!! After that, everything fell together nicely!!

So here's how I started: After the base coat was down, I sectioned off the top 1/3 of the board with a thickened creamy white paint...and the bottom 2/3 with varying blue-green colors. I then seperated those with a wavy black ground line. Here it is:
After thinning down the black paint considerably, I went over the surrounding area with a wide brush, just to add some contrast.
I really wanted the colors to deepen as I got closer to the bottom of the board, but I also wanted them to be vivid. This is the best picture I could come up with for the gradual color change:
After all was said and done I added a tree to the top of the painting. I really wanted the tree to be muted. Mainly because I liked the contrast between barren colors on top, with the vivid colors on bottom. So I stuck with golden/beige colors. Lastly, I added some reflection to the tree in the water (Did I mention it was water? Oh well, you probably got the idea!).
Kellie was so excited when she opened it...Then shocked when she found out I painted it! Incidentally, Dad thought it would be "fun" to name all my paintings...this one became "Tree with a Tail"...thanks Dad.