Lisa is the second piece in a series of three works. The things that relate all the works are the huge frame (as one of the main elements) and the somewhat ‘misplaced’ character within that frame. I call it surreal disproportionate art. Disproportionate because the frame is out of proportion and shows the main character at the bottom only.
Other things that the artworks have in common are the elements of nature, such as flowers, butterflies, birds, fish, and more – but that’s typical of all of my Surreal Creations (and even of some works from my Lip Service Collection).
By the way, I also have a quick tutorial on how to make something look gold in Photoshop, if you wanna know how I made the birds golden.
Oh yeah, and the huge hair updo, but that’s also something that appears in several of my works, like ‘neglect.’, ‘oblivion.’, and ‘Zuckerwatte’.
The first piece of the series is ‘Sally’ from 2019. If you are interested, you can check out the Making of ‘Sally’ here.
The second piece is ‘Lisa’ from the same year, and then I made ‘Zara’ in 2020.
Before we dive deeper into the creation process of ‘Lisa’, feel free to watch the timelapse video right below. 👇
The Making Of 'Lisa'
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Work in Progress shots
Everything starts with a background… 😉 Lisa was going to be another lady in a frame, and this time I had some gold-blue tones in mind.
So for the background, I chose this beautiful blue, baroque wallpaper, and later on, I was going to put a golden frame on it…
I roughly cut out the background for the frame, added a cloudy sky with a couple of birds, flowers, and the lady’s face. As usual, the face is my own, and you can see I already made some modifications.
I tend to make the faces look quite stylized, with big eyes. Here, I liquified the face already a bit, making the chin smaller. I also added some blush and a few highlights to forehead and chin.
Okay, here we have the golden frame and some golden dust on the wallpaper. I created the decoration on the hair, added the hand with a bracelet that both come out of the frame, and continued working on the face.
I mainly worked on the eyes, created the lashes and painted the eye shadow. You can see how much the expression changes as you work out the eyes. Huge difference to the progress screenshot above!
‘Lisa’ is nearing her completion. In step #5, I continued working on the decoration of the hair (the flowers at the top). A rose at the top of the frame and some falling rose petals.
My ‘Lisa’ also got a nice earring and some more decoration is going to come in the last step…
The last step mainly involved adding elements of nature that I use to work with in a lot of my Surreal Stories. You see the golden hummingbirds at the top (learn how to make something look gold in Photoshop here), a golden butterfly and some golden flowers that complement the frame.
Moreover, a few butterflies have joined the scene, and two birds inside the frame. Not to forget, there are some bees and pearls, too!
So this is how the creation process of ‘Lisa’ went. I hope you enjoyed seeing it and maybe got some inspiration for your own artwork!
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I hope that this post helped you gain some insights into my creative process and better understand what I meant to express through this work. However, I know that art is subjective and I am always interested in knowing how my viewers perceive my art.
What do you think about this piece? How does it make you feel? What does it mean to you? Please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments. If this piece inspired you to create a new piece of your own, I would love to see it! Post a link in the comments, tag me on Instagram (@ginangiela), or reach out to me directly. Make sure to sign up for my email list below so you don’t miss out on new ‘Making Ofs’ and other cool stuff. ♥
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