Airplane Window

A couple years ago for an art class I came up with some ideas following the prompt "beginnings and ends". One of these ideas showed a girl sitting next to an airplane window, looking sad. The idea of the airplane window can symbolize both the beginning or end of a trip, but in this case it's more focused on the end when the girl has to go, leaving behind friends, family, and memories. This is a very familiar situation for me, so there's a lot of emotion behind this piece.

I ended up choosing a different sketch to develop for that project, but this sketch had always stayed on my mind to work on later. I wasn't sure if I wanted to use paint or chalk pastel, but after taking the painting intensive class last month, I decided to use acrylic paints. I especially wanted to practice using acrylics for the skin tones on the girl to get a realistic look. I switched up the composition to make it vertical and sketched it out on the canvas. I used a reference photo for drawing the girl, but once I started painting, all the colors and lighting I chose on my own. I contemplated making the shirt the same red-orange as the sky, but I ended up using the blue of the airplane window to create a sadder mood.

I started in the background, using a brown for the the sandy beach and then creating a gradient with red and yellow for the sky and water at sunset.

Next I worked on the frame of the airplane window, using a greenish blue color.

After that I painted the girl's shirt with the same blue color, going back over the polka dots with white.

To start on the face, I created an underpainting of a dark brown color in the shadowed parts. On top of this I added a pinkish-red color toned down with white.

Once I had a base layer of the pink skin tone, I added the untinted, redder color to the darker parts and white blended into the pink for the highlights.

With the face done, I worked on the hair, making sure that the brush strokes followed the direction of the hair to help it flow and look more realistic. The darker brown I used where the pieces of hair overlapped or were blocked from the overhead light.

Here is the final piece!

Leaving