Painting of Disney’s “Iridessa”

I was thrilled when I got the commission to paint one of Disney’s fairies. Who doesn’t love Disney? And now that they’ve included characters of color, all little girls have princesses & fairies that look like them.

Some of you know my husband is black, which means all of most of our huge extended family are african american. Just some background about me so you know why a lot of my kids’ paintings are african american.

This painting is for my husband’s 2nd 3rd cousin. Lemme see – it’s his 1st cousin’s granddaughter, whatever that makes her. She’s 9 years old & had very definite thoughts about what she wanted. She gave me this picture to work from.



She wanted to keep the yellow dress, but put it on a lilac background. We’re painting a focal wall in her room this color.



It’s the fourth chip up – sort of a medium lavender.

She also pulled out her favorite towel to show me the blue flowers she wanted.



I guess I’m kinda like the paint stores – bring me any picture and I’ll try and match it.

So first, I basecoated a piece of canvas with a lighter lavender. Then I chalked the outline of Iridessa.



Often I take the picture to a blueprinter and have it enlarged to scale, then transfer the image with graphite paper. But for this, I hoped my sketching skills were up to par.

Next I started mixing to get the skin tones. Ugh. Double Ugh.



I probably spent more time then I should have – but I do tend to obsess over skin tones – especially african americans. Throw in the fact that it was a cartoon picture, and that adds another element of difficulty. I just kept mixing and finally moved along.



I dabbed on the darker lilac color just to add some depth & dimension to the piece. This won’t hang on the lilac wall in the room so it doesn’t have to be exact – but I wanted it to be close.

After I finished painting all the elements I wanted to add a little sumpin-sumpin.



I outlined the fairy’s body with white mixed with Pearl Luster. Then I added Sparkle Glaze to the outline & her wings.



And just for that something extra – Rhinestones!



After all, she is a fairy!



Right now she’s upside down on my work table while the glue dries on the seams. She’ll hang from a decorative rod. When we get it installed, I’ll post a pic.

Linking up to these fun parties! Let’s go take a peek and see what other crafty projects are there.

Colleen