The Color Master

One of my final classes for grad school was a narrative painting class, which was really interesting, despite the fact that we only had 8 weeks to paint a 36x48" canvas in oils.  I chose to illustrate the short story "The Color Master" by Aimee Bender, which is an amazing retelling of the faerie tale Donkeyskin (you can read it in the anthology My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me).  This is the part in the story where the Color Master's apprentice works to put anger in the dress so that the princess will not marry her father. 

I really haven't worked in oils since high school, so I had a lot of learning to do, especially since oil techniques are nearly opposite of watercolor techniques.  In the end, there's still a lot I would like to fix/improve on with this painting, but sometimes, you just have to be done and stop swearing at your canvas.

Oils on canvas, 36 x 48"