Unrestrained

MEDIUM: Digital Painting | STYLE: Painterly Realism | SIZE: 11 x 14 | ORIENTATION: Portrait | TOOLS: Procreate, 13″ iPad Pro, Apple Pencil Pro, Giclee Fine Art Archival paper and ink | AVAILABILITY: Prints available.

A beautiful day in a lush garden is all it takes for this woman to feel completely unrestrained. Running freely down the garden path with her hair and her dress blowing in the cool and gentle breeze she is headed for her favorite place in the garden with the expectation of spending time with only herself and nature.

ARTIST’S PROCESS: Unrestrained was painted in Procreate on a 13″ iPad Pro using the Apple Pencil Pro. This technique replicates traditional painting’s depth and texture through layered digital brushwork. Created from a mood board approach rather than a specific reference photo, the composition began with careful structural drawing to establish the subject’s figure, hair and clothing. A sketch of the background garden and forest was added to place the subject in the scene. Color blocking was done as a foundation for the figure, path, flowers and the distant fields. Detail work began with broad color washes followed by layers adding details to the figure, and then to the garden and further background images.  Shadow and light were built up using multiple Procreate layers and specific brushes. The background was painted in layers with the immediate ground and flowers on one layer, the transition space where the garden opens to the fields on another and a final layer containing the distant trees and hills. All layers combined to complete the painting.

CHALLENGE: The profusion of flowers lining both sides of the garden path would be time consuming to paint individually. Several layers of each species of flowers and foliage were created and the individual blooms and leaves painted with variation and different positioning on each layer. With sufficient variation in the garden plants achieved the layer were duplicated, mixed and placed on the canvas along the path with a few specific sections altered  slightly with the Procreate “Liquify” tool to blend the edges into each other for a seamless look.

SUBJECTS AND THEMES: Figurative Art — Narrative Art — Garden — Summer — Freedom — Wildflowers — Wind — Movement — Woman in a Garden — Digital Painting — Painterly Realism — Procreate Art