you are like a star shining brightly

as an expectant mama nothing is better than welcoming your new baby into your arms.  especially a much-wanted and long-awaited baby!  i wanted to help christian and robin welcome their little guy with a special painting for the nursery.  robin said she wanted the phrase "you are like a star shining brightly" from the primary song.  i thought for a good 3-4 months about what exactly to paint, how to incorporate that phrase, etc.  and then i woke up one morning, knowing exactly what i wanted to do, and seeing the finished painting in my head.  so even though a magician never reveal his secrets, here were the steps to this special painting:

1.  first order of business:  get david to take a photo of me holding a star.  i told david i wanted a shot from the side, with me cupping the star in my hands.  this took A LOT of shots...and patience.  i think at one point i said, "hello, can't you see what i want in my head, from my angle?  do you need to chop off my head and put the camera there?"  good old david, ever patient.  we finally got the shot.  and then i played with the lighting on the computer until it looked just right...and star-like. 

2.  next: sketch the hands with water color pencils and the words with a "masque pen".  i found that thing on clearance when a craft store went out of business a year+ ago (i think i was actually still pregnant with max, now that i think about it!), and knew i'd want it for a project.  it was just patiently waiting for the right project.  this stuff is really cool--you "write" with it as a liquid, it dries as a gel, you paint over it, then rub it off when you are done!  voila!  

3. painting the hands, glowy effect included.

4. painting the background and throwing salt down.  salt absorbs water, and water adheres to the water color paint pigment, so when you sprinkle it on a water color painting, it absorbs both the water and the pigment, turning the painted paper into a really cool stippled effect.  i used so much salt it looked like a salt flat...it took a long time (and a palette knife) to get the salt off.  a lot of it ended up staying on, which i actually ended up liking--it make the painting have a sparkly, star-like effect.

(before rubbing off the salt)

after rubbing off the salt, sprinkling white paint with a toothbrush, and then finally rubbing off the gel

close-ups of cool areas

after taking pictures, i realized i didn't like how the water dried to the left of the arms, making a line in blue paint, and the weird curved finger-like projection to the right of the hands.  solution?  paint brush with water, a little rub here, a little rub there, and it looked a little better.  finished product (exactly as i saw it in my head!):