Painting Copenhagen

A few months ago, the 79 year old Director of Transfusion Services at UC Davis Medical Center gave me the most amazing brown leather mailbag I could ever ask for. This bag was obviously well loved, and I felt completely undeserving. In an effort to not just send another thank you card (she has also made me a scarf and some gloves), I decided I would paint a small scene of Copenhagen instead. So, I did. I still need to decide how I would like to frame it, but I am hoping to give it to her by her 80th birthday on December 9.

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First Attempt at Painting a Peg Doll

A few months back I bought this set of peg dolls and some paint on Etsy with the thought of painting many of our family and friends for Kennedy to play with. This first painting of a peg doll was really entertaining, but definitely a trial and error process. I wasn’t trying to do anything fancy or paint anyone in particular; I just wanted to get a sense of how it would go. The peg dolls themselves are fairly smooth, but could use a nice going-over with fine sandpaper before starting. I really liked being able to use the small paint kit, so that I didn’t have to deal with a lot of set up preparation or clean up after. Overall, the process was fairly straightforward: Sand. Sketch. Paint. Polish. I really liked the way that the head turned out, but will certainly put more thought into the clothing portion next time. I’m really excited to try to make people that I know, more than anything. I do think that I will buy some Kokeshi peg dolls, which have a larger head, because I like the finished look of them better. Once I have painted a few more and feel like I have the process down, I’ll post more about the details (like not selecting the part of the doll head that has a big ole crack in it), but for now I am excited to see what I can come up with.