I finished my painting and I am very happy with how it turned out. Although it could be a bit cleaner in some places and a little better executed, i am really happy with the drama of the lighting and the mood of the piece. the mushrooms and the bark turned out even better than I thought they would, even though you can't really see the detail in the bark that well from the picture. I was very nervous for how the eye on the right would turn out because there was such a big shadow over part of it, but I am really happy with it. I think how i went about it was pretty good. I am also happy with how the hair turned out in the shadows where it really isn't in the light. Overall I am happy with this piece!

i painted the frame and i am very happy with how it turned out. It was very fun to paint, but it took a while. I am almost finished with the piece. I just need to finish the glass, which I am apprehensive of, but excited. I also glazed over some of the flowers in her hair so that the ones cast in shadow aren't as light as the other ones. I am really happy with this piece and it is so much fun to see it glitter at certain angles.

I painted everything orange in order to have a nice base color to work on top of. then i went in with some of the darker colors in order to establish the location of the darks and start working on the background. I will need to do a second coat for most of the background and refine some of the edges as well, but I am happy with the progress so far. I have also started working on the bark, but it was kind of frustrating because the paint wasn't drying as fast as i wanted it to. So i had to take a few breaks to let some of the paint dry before going back in and working on it. 

I will work in some ligher values into the bark so you can actually tell what it is.

I spent monday fleshing out the idea and taking pictures so that i had nice reference photos with lots of contrast. Ill try to put in the thumbnail later but im not sure how to at the moment. 

 On wednesday i gridded it out and sketch everything. I accidentally drew everything a line down, so the piece is centered lower that i originally planned, but it should be fine, its not that much of a problem and i had already finished most of it when i noticed so it wasn't worth erasing everything and redrawing it.
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I am happy with the direction it is going and excited that i am finally using this canvas. I got it a year ago(i think)  and i have never gotten the chance to use it. I am excited for how it will turn out although i will need to do some shroom studies because the reference pictures i have of the mushrooms don't have anywhere close to the right lighting so i am going to have to play around with that. And the bark too. I am excited for how this will turn out-- the shadows are really weird so they are going to be fun to work out. :))