Tag Archives: Green

Rutilant

Acrylic painting by Leah Palmer Preiss depicting a girl with long red hair against a green background

Today’s illustration of Rutilant was one of the many times when my fingers come up with an idea before my brain does. As I was doodling R shapes in my sketchbook, one of them reminded me of an old-school flip hairstyle. And what could be more rutilant than a redhead?

At first my sketches centered on the face, but then I thought it would be funnier if the hair were floor-length. A little distortion of proportion has never bothered me, so I went for it! And the long red hair made me think of Rossetti, so I added a pomegranate & green gown as a nod to this painting.

In keeping with the red, gold & gleaming theme, a pair of ruby slippers & a golden hair ribbon were my last additions. It didn’t even occur to me until mid-painting that the color scheme is very Christmasy!

(This painting & prints are available in my Etsy Shop, Curious Art Lab.)

Dunny Ultramarine Acrylic, collage, polymer clay & found objects on vinyl toy (front & back)

DunnyUltramarine-LeahPalmerPreissThis little guy is a commissioned 3-inch Dunny (actually more like 2.75 inches in real measurement). I was lucky enough to have a free brief, so I made several different sketches & the client chose this concept. The text on his back is from an old dictionary, & includes the chemical formula for synthetic ultramarine. The little trident is made of polymer clay and a “stick” jewelry finding I picked up at the flea market. I rolled gold leaf onto the green polymer clay before cutting the fork, & painted the back of the brass handle with diluted green paint so that the metal resisted it a bit. I thought it was quite interesting how similar the two textures turned out in the end. That’s why I love Nature’s chaos!