Birthday painting for Brandy

It's Brandy's birthday this month, so I wanted to make her some gifts that reflected the fall season.

First I sewed her a witch's hat using a tutorial from Spoonflower.

Then I scoured the internet for historical paintings of - but didn't find anything that worked. Then I found an image of a 15th century woman Hester Tradescant. To start with, she's wearing a tall pilgrim type hat - both Thanksgiving and Halloween are celebrated in October. In addition, a quick search revealed that the Tradescants were collectors in England who opened one of the first museums (collections of oddities from around the world) - kinda spooky. By trade the Tradescants were also botanists (the Tradecsantia house plant is named after the family), perfect for a friend who's house is filled with plants.

The canvas is pretty small: 8cmx8cm, so I knew I would have to severely "crop" the image to fit. Plus this is the smallest I could paint the face with the brushes I own.

I really enjoy using old paintings as reference, allowing me to play with colour and lighting. Which is a fancy way of saying that in the end, the portrait doesn't really look like Hester, but I still like the result.

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