The second GISH task I chose smelled pretty nice! Uh, until I added the dill at the end.
You could say I'm a spice lady.
One of the items for the scavenger hunt was to make a Spice Girl(s) portrait out of spices. Herbs are kind of my thing, and I have had a slight Mountain Rose Herbs addiction in the past. My spice cabinet is packed to the brim with quart mason jars of fragrant goodies... a kitchen witch's paradise!
I chose Ginger Spice, particularly because I had a lot of powdered ginger for skin color and dried ginger for hair. The most time-consuming part was just picking out the right pose and drawing it on a canvas board.
It took a while to get the technique down.
I tried out a few different methods, and doing a "paint by number" sort of thing with glue was the only one that really worked. Ginger does NOT just mix with other spices easily, it clings to the paintbrush in ever-growing chunks and causes lots of problems, as I discovered on my first try without glue:
The solution was to make a few blends of different skin/shadow colors with ginger, cinnamon, and beet powders. I glued all the powders in place before moving on to the chunkier spices. The glue permanently darkened everything a bit, particularly the beet powder in the skin blends and lips... it turned out quite different than I had expected, but still close enough to work!
This was the final shot, it looked best under the sunroom lights at night:
Afterward I put about a dozen layers of spray matte mod podge on it, which worked pretty well to preserve it, though the spices blew around a bit and darkened even more. Overall, I was pretty happy with how this turned out. It's been years since I drew or painted anything to completion!
Spices used:
You could say I'm a spice lady.
One of the items for the scavenger hunt was to make a Spice Girl(s) portrait out of spices. Herbs are kind of my thing, and I have had a slight Mountain Rose Herbs addiction in the past. My spice cabinet is packed to the brim with quart mason jars of fragrant goodies... a kitchen witch's paradise!
I chose Ginger Spice, particularly because I had a lot of powdered ginger for skin color and dried ginger for hair. The most time-consuming part was just picking out the right pose and drawing it on a canvas board.
 |
| Drawing of a classic and busty Ginger Spice pose. |
It took a while to get the technique down.
I tried out a few different methods, and doing a "paint by number" sort of thing with glue was the only one that really worked. Ginger does NOT just mix with other spices easily, it clings to the paintbrush in ever-growing chunks and causes lots of problems, as I discovered on my first try without glue:
 |
| Ginger and beet don't mix well on the page. |
The solution was to make a few blends of different skin/shadow colors with ginger, cinnamon, and beet powders. I glued all the powders in place before moving on to the chunkier spices. The glue permanently darkened everything a bit, particularly the beet powder in the skin blends and lips... it turned out quite different than I had expected, but still close enough to work!
 |
| Spicy progress. |
This was the final shot, it looked best under the sunroom lights at night:
 |
| The finished Ginger Spice portrait. |
Afterward I put about a dozen layers of spray matte mod podge on it, which worked pretty well to preserve it, though the spices blew around a bit and darkened even more. Overall, I was pretty happy with how this turned out. It's been years since I drew or painted anything to completion!
Spices used:
- Ginger powder: skin
- Cinnamon powder: skin, eyebrows
- Beet powder: skin, lips
- Orange peel: hair
- Ginger dried chunks: hair
- Roasted chicory root: hair
- Chipotle powder: hair
- Chili flakes: hair
- Poppy seeds: eyes
- Sesame seeds: eyes
- Sea salt: reflection in eyes
- Chia seeds: eyelashes, eyeshadow
- Turbinado sugar: necklace (hard to tell in photos, but with the glue it retained a sparkly crystalline texture that does look like jewelry)
- Smoked paprika: dress
- Black Hawaiian salt: pupils, cleavage
- Winter savory: background
- Dill: background
No comments:
Post a Comment