Mimi’s Unicorn Ear Muffs

Mimi’s outfit and funny posture in the photo below were what attracted me to paint this. She is such an adorable little person.

Painting children is hard! Their proportions are so different from adults. I don’t know how many times I restarted and repainted this.

Lessons learned:

1. Get the drawing right first! (the lesson I keep having to learn over and over). If I’d checked my drawing before painting, I wouldn’t have had to start over so many times. (See below)
2. I don’t like painting miniatures: in the painting her face is only about an inch wide. That meant using tiny brushes and even a magnifying glass at one point to paint her features. I want to paint life size or close to it.
3. I have the skill to fix things, redraw or repaint. It’s not as easy as just clicking “undo” in digital art. But now I have the confidence to say, “don’t worry, you can fix it.”
4. Sometimes I just have to stop and move on, trusting I’ve learned what I can and will learn more from the next painting.
5. Colorful grays are as much fun as saturated colors.

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