New addition to the Sleepwalker frame

After two days of painting I finished another decoration for the "Sleepwalker" painting's frame (which you can read more about here). This brings the total of "margin putti" up to three, with about 5 more to go plus some random objects. After working on a still life and a few portraits for the past few weeks I found it quite refreshing to work on another putto.

This one, named Viola, is painted in a very graphic, trompe l'oeil manner; which is a bit of a deviation from my usual technique where I try to achieve a lot of atmosphere with lost and found edges. In this quick painting most of the edges pop out, and the lack of a background makes one feel as if the doll could be removed entirely from the frame.

This putto rests at about eye level at the moment because the frame is resting on the floor. When it is mounted on a wall Viola will be well above average eye level, and so I have tried to figure this in by incorporating perspective into the drawing. Her head should appear slightly as though we were looking up at her. In addition I have taken care to make all of the shadows on the putti match each other, imitating a ceiling or high window lighting source.

Detail. Brown Teddy also features for the first time on this blog! You will be seeing a lot more of him... Basically he is a very cherished family heirloom, belonging to the father of three children I am painting somewhere else. He is a very nice, classic, English teddy with a lot of character so I love painting him. Viola adores him too.

All of my putti have bare feet.