Tag Archives: Chinese teen

‘Six-Tailed Kitsune’

This is the first time I chose to create a self portrait; this wasn’t any sort of assignment for a studio class or even a prompt for an art contest.

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Sketchbook composition done in charcoal pencil and photographed with my lucky charm: a Chinese macrame necklace with a moonstone locket box.
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Sloppy underpainting: neat borders made with blue painter’s tape covering the edges.

I believe that the most difficult aspect of this original painting was the placement and structure of the foxes; in order to keep the flow of the work consistent I added another fox (lower left hand corner)

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vivid colors and details slowly being constructed
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Since kitsunes have different powers I chose to paint them different colors and allow the viewer to guess which had which magical ability.
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Tweaking the final details and placement of the eyes, lips, etc.

I have seen another contemporary artist, Kelly Denato,’s paintings which possessed a glowing effect despite no iridescent shimmer paints. In order to achieve that same effect I used a tiny brush and pastel paints to dip dots all over the backdrop, almost like fluttering flower petals and snowflakes.

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Final colors/signed acrylic painting. 

This will more than likely end up in my ‘Best of 2017’ post upon January 1, 2018. Thanks as always for viewing. Merry we meet and merry we part.

~Xi Wen Chen