“Beauty Left While the Others Slept”  Acrylic on canvas 10×10 inches

Under painting from “Beauty.”  I sketched out the basic layout of the composition with pencil and lay down a few layers of blue glaze.  I partially painted in the “brambles” that grew around the cave which led Beauty to the open forest.  I used a fine outline brush for this network of branches twining around and over. 

I started adding color, repainting the brambles each time I lay down a new layer of color.  I used a squirt bottle of water on the drying paint and then blotted the water drops away which left the little points of fairy lights. 

I worked on the stone wall as I lay down different layers of color for the foreground.  This is a small painting, only 10 inches square, but it evolved over a 10-day period of time.  Beauty was first sketched and then painted on deli paper.  I couldn’t decide whether she would wear old- fashioned clothing, or modern, so I settled for something in between, making her skirt short, but giving her an old-fashioned jacket.  The be-ribboned shoes seemed like a good choice for a fairy tale princess to dance her way out of a cave from a long enchantment.  This Beauty found her own way.