christmas canvasses

Hi all, I have been painting small canvasses in Christmas style, I think they turned out cute.

DECO ART products used: Americana Gesso, Matte Varnish and Americana acrylics in the colours:

Snow white, True Red, Melon, Coral shell, Lamp black, Winter blue, Festive green, Moon yellow, 

Glamourdust glitterpaint in Ice crystal.

The size of each canvas is 2.5 inch x 2.5 inch, the 3 canvasses are made into a wallhanger by attaching a ribbon with a loop on the back of the canvasses.

You can buy this wall hanger in my Zibbet shop here

To start I gessoed all canvasses, for Santa's head I started by dividing the canvas in 3 parts by painting the red and skin color (I used Corall Shell). Next I used Snow white to paint the furr on the hat and the beard. I shaded the beard a bit using winter blue and dabbed that on (use very little paint , brush needs to be almost dry)

Added a little black on the edge of the furr as shade and painted the eyes and the mouth.

The nose and the cheeks are a mix of Melon and a wee bit red.

When paint was dry I added the Glamour dust glitter paint on beard and fur to give some Christmassy sparkle. Finished the canvas with Matte Varish for protection.

TIP:  if you (like me are not the best painter in the world) would like to be able to rease parts of the painting that did not come out that well, here is a little trick. Just before I need to add the details I firtly adde a layer of matte varnish. Let it dry and it will protect the layers of paint underneath. So before painting on the face I added varnish and mistakes can be erased away using a baby wipe. I did the same on the other canvasses before painting the belt and before adding the highlights to the boots.

Santa's coat,  I started with the true red and painted the whole canvas red, next I painted the fur using Snow white and made it look more furry using Wnter Blue (carefully dabb with almost dry brush)

next I added a bit black on both sides of the fur to shade a bit and painted the belt. The buckle is Moon yellow, and the highlights in the belt are Winter Blue. Added the Glamour dust glitter paint on the furr again and finished with Matte varnish

The boots :  this one was a bit more difficult because the shape of the boots. First I took a drawing pencil and sketched the boots, furr and pants roughly try to do it lightly so it won't show throught the paint. Next start painting all colours to the sketch you made, Pants red,  boots lamp black (I painted around the edges so the boots go around the corner,  I thought that would be a fun idea), make the back ground Festive Green) Let the paint dry. Next paint the furr on the boots, Let dry and add matte varnish as protection layer for possible mistake s(lol)  and let dry .  Next you need to start adding shades and highlights to give everything a bit of shape,

I used black to add the shade of the furr to the trousers, this gives a bit depth. Next the legs need to be separated because in this stage they are just a red triangle like shape. So use a little black paint to split the triangle in the middle and fade it out a bit (from the middle to the outsides. On the outsides of the legs also use a bit blackand let it fade into the middle. This gives the legs a bit shape.
Where the two furr parts come togheter there needs to be some shade to just as on the outside curves, and the furr needs to look fluffy so dabbing is the trick, I used Winter Blue for shading the furr.
Next the boots, use highlight on the black to create a boot shape, Just look at the picture to see what I mean, I used Winter Blue for the highlights on the boot

Finally finish the canvas with another layer of Matte Varnish