Angels everywhere! New paintings in watercolor and acrylic

Truth first - I'm not a big "angel" person. I don't have angel figurines, I never put the little feathered angel wings on my babies and had there pictures taken, I don't have a poster of the little cherubs by Leonardo hanging in my bathroom. But because of the sculptures I fell in love with in Rome, and a theme show we have coming up in November, Angels have been my subject of choice lately! And I am really enjoying it. Last night our figure drawing group was lucky to have a lovely model pose and as angel for us! She ordered those gorgeous wings from Australia (bless her heart!) and found that divine, flowing dress in an antique shop. I told her those were a great investment - I have a feeling she'll be posing as an angel again!

I was working with watercolor pencils on watercolor paper mounted to foam core. I started with light purple and blue, and slowly added in more warm colors. As you can see above - there is a sticky note on my painting - I kept playing with her face and ignoring all the drapery! So I covered the face until I caught up with the whole figure.

We will be continuing this pose for at least the first half of our group next week, so in the interim I want to build up my background and work on the drapery, so when we are in front of the model again I can focus on her face and figure.

And I've got a start on my second angel sculpture painting this morning! I wish I had a picture from yesterday - my 4 yr old was in the studio with me, so I put him to work priming the masonite board. I mixed up the paint, and he decided to use 2 brushes - one very small brush, and one 2 inch brush. He scooped the paint with the small brush, spread it on the big brush, and then painted the board. It was so funny. And it kept him busy. What's great is that he's not as smooth as I am when it comes to applying the gesso - so he actually helped me create a great surface to work on - lots of texture! It's going to look great when I start sanding and glazing - all the ridges in the gesso will create wonderful patterns and textures! Thanks Jack!