Snake Deva

This is the third painting I finished last week.  She's a snake deva.  Devas are the overseers of the nature spirit realm.  As you may have guessed, she watches over snakes.  One of the snakes has become quite friendly with her and likes to rest on her forehead.

This is an intuitive mixed media piece.  I began with a background in Derwent Inktense.  I really wanted a part of the page to be in cool colors and the other part to be in warm colors.  When I started splattering Derwent Inktense here and there, there was some crossover, but the overall feel is that one side is warm and the other side cool.  After the background dried, the nose really stood out.  It was already fully formed.  The nose led me to the upper lip below and the snake above.  When I looked to the left, I saw a large eye and the edge of the face in the pattern of the background.

Whenever I paint intuitively, I start by painting an intuitive abstract background.  Next, I outline whatever I see/feel in the background with a marker, usually a Faber-Castell Pitt marker.  Then, I add more shading and highlights.  Finally, I add any finishing touches to accent my painting.

These are the media I used for this painting:
1. Derwent Inktense blocks,
2. Cretacolor Aqua Monolith watercolor pencil,
3. Faber-Castell Pitt marker in warm grey 4,
4. Colored pencils (Prismacolor Premier/Koh-I-Noor Tritone/Faber-Castell Polychromos),
5. Collage: Moon die cut (Thanks for the moon, Dawn!) and Japanese text (on snake),
6. Caran d'ache Neocolor 2s,
7. Acrylic paint (Golden fluid acrylics/Tim Holtz Distress Paint),
8. Copic sketch marker (around snake's eyes), and
9. Sakura gelly roll pen.

Wendy