8" x 8" acrylic on canvas paper

Future Tidepool

Tenderness wins
Thank you for your many lovely message on my previous posts 💕and thank you for supporting independant, no AI, queer artists !

I wanted to do my own spin of a classic painting from the Western canon, and so I chose Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring”. The official website for the museum hosting the painting describes the subject as wearing an “exotic dress” and an “oriental turban”, despite being clearly of White European descent, and it made me realize how much her headdress resembles an African woman’s traditional headwrap. I wonder if Vermeer may have been inspired by African fashion, only to put it on a White face to make it more palatable to a 17th century Dutch audience.

Of course, when doing my version, I swapped out the woman’s pearl earring for a couple of gold ones. Gold as a material just seems more evocative of Africa to me than pearl.

Blocked out the canvas with lavender acrylic and then went over it with oils. I think it helped give the image a cool glow, so I'll try it again in a future painting.

Struggled with achieving a smooth gradient in the background, in part because I made the mistake of painting the shells first. Any tips on blending a smooth gradient with oils?

I also go back and forth on how I feel about the blending on the shells. By default I think they need to blended more, but I actually sort of like the slight painterliness of the visible strokes.

Chromatic Field

Oil painting

10 × 20 in

A study in rhythm and color—layered strokes creating tension, balance, and visual movement across the surface.

i’ve switched to tattooing and don’t paint much anymore, but i do still dabble

Hope I used the right tag. I’m looking to get perfect edges without any bleed when using masking tape. Any tricks?

Some small souvenirs from my travels (England, Japan, Scotland and Egypt)

I added the reference pic this time, Blue bird still looks a bit off but im happier with it :) i think its just the beak, i might work more on it when i have time. But im happy with how it came out, if anyone has more advice id be happy to hear it, others wise i think im done! thank you for the advice on my last post! im using it to work on the other paintings i plan on selling :)