Ophelia's Dream - Complete!

Ophelia's Dream - artwork by Christina Lank
40 x 60 cm acrylic on masonite board

Yay, I finally get to post my new painting onto my blog as well! I know I am a day behind (I am that and more with everything now and days) - but I am very happy to reveal my Ophelia rendition and some exclusive close up shots I havent posted anywhere else ^^

condensed flowers in the background, including a dragonfly!

I wanted flowers, lots of flowers. This painting became darker and darker for everyday I worked on it haha, it seemed like I had a harder time pulling it out into the light more than anything else.
I painted this overgrowth once, then again, and then again, each time adding more and more highlights, and increasingly darker shadows....

Lily flowers and lily pads down on the lower part of the painting

However the light did shine through very naturally when I began painting the lily flowers, which to me really popped more than I had expected. If I can blushingly admit, those lily flowers took me about 5 hours to paint (I know, I know...) but in the end I got just the right pink for me :P

Ophelia's face in the water...

Ophelia herself is no surprise - she came quite quickly and naturally. I had a superb model whom I was very grateful for having! At least, the part out of the water came naturally...anyone who follows my blog knows what happened to the part under water!! :O

itsy bitsy dragonfly on Ophelia's hip

The dragonflies were the last time to be painted onto this piece. Richard, my ever loving boyfriend, comes in and out of my paintings depending on what I am doing. He completely ignored this painting right up until the end where he suddenly had many opinions on the gosh darn dragonflies lol! We spent quite some time painting silver, than inking blue...than inking green. They may be tiny, but from afar they certainly do shine!

Ophelia's Dream painting in full - so you may take in the details all together!

I took one nice shot of it outside, during my usual "i hate photography so much" run around trying to find good lighting on a dark painting. Here you can take in from afar all the lights, darks, shades and shadows....with her almost peaceful look.

Ophelia was a painting I had wanted to do for many months, though the original image in my head was a hundred times different! From purples, to reds, to greens and yellows, to deep blues and pinks, its taken a journey from thought to reality.
The imagery of a woman falling to her death from a willow tree, lost her mind crazy, but the character herself in the original play always had to be an innocent factor. One I thought would transmit into peacefulness once she was released from real life, into the unknown of death.

I hope you like my new painting!
If you happen to be in Sweden, you can come see it, and all my other paintings this September in Malmö at Martin's Color + Gallery!
Follow along with all the other paintings I'll be doing for a show here on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/plantiebees