Hand painted in Rebelle 7 Pro on a Surface Pro 8 (i7, 16gb RAM) with Slim Pen 2.

It’s a thing in Texas to capture people roaming or sitting in fields of blue bonnets, the state’s official flower. They grow in swaths, turning fields blue and white and people love to play in them.

This girl’s parents commissioned a portrait of her experiencing this for the first time. We went out and I took quite a few pictures as she ran around, explored, flew through the flowers with her mother and invited us to enjoy it with her!

The simple joy of discovery was the theme here and infuses her smile with delight!

The sun was bright and shining, casting deep shadows across her face, but also lighting up her skin as it travelled through. I lightened up the shadows to bring her face out, and spent several hours capturing the luminescence as sunlight infused her hand.

This little girl is at the stage where pockets are wonderful things (I never outgrew this myself), so I emphasized the pocket in her dress just for her!

Progress Pictures

Her parents gave me permission to add this to my portfolio, but in consideration of privacy, requested that any reference pictures of her be obscured.

It took me quite a few tries to figure out how I wanted to paint the blue bonnets. This was it finally coming together.

Working on capturing the light as it travels through her hand.

Blocking in the values on her face

Here you can see how dark the shadows were. I went back over everything manually and lightened it up once I’d worked out the contours and colors.