Japanese Girl

I've been working on this for the past few days. I found a picture a while back of the costume being worn in this painting and thought it looked beautiful and would make for an interesting part of a painting. At the same time it would be a good challenge for me because I struggle with value and color range when I paint whites. So using this as an excercise I gave it a shot and here's where I ended up. I'm not completely happy with the whites (as I expected, I guess I need more practice). But the overall feel of the image I'm happy with.

Commentary on the Great Perfection of Wisom

So I had a little spare time at work for the last couple days so I thought it would be a good idea to work on a painting. I had a fun photo to work from as reference of the Dalai Lama on his visit to Hawaii. So I sketched out a quick version of my own and get to painting. This was a really quick and rough painting but all in all I like how it came out. No disrespect to the Dalai Lama at all with the characaturization. Having lived in Taiwan for a couple years and being somewhat familiar with the Buddhist religion and other far eastern religions I have the utmost respect for him. Anyway fun painting and nice to get a little break from regular work.

In the background is the Buddhist painting depicting the circle of life, and a Buddhist text called the Commentray on the Great Perfection of Wisdom.