I was not happy with my first pass at the character, so I redid her to make her pose more dynamic and to add a bit more personality. I painted in some more of the foliage and added a bit more wear and tear to the windows. I also added a few more props to the ground to try and help tell the story of the scene a bit better. 

So as I mentioned in the previous post, I needed some paintings to fill the empty canvases, so this was a bit of a meta moment where I, the artist, was painting art, that the artist in the painting had painted. 

And of course, the subject of the paintings were all unicorns/Greg. THU2022 was my first main event, and a place that truly felt like an oasis, so this felt like a fun nod to that. 

(Yes, I had a lot of fun with the last painting, hehe. Perhaps you can see my sense of humor peeking through here. I tried to paint a portrait of Greg in the style of the master painter Rembrandt. It was difficult to not spend too much time on this because even though I knew it would be barely visible in the final, I was having too much fun with it.) 

Using the 3D model I just made as a base, I play around with textures, colors, blend modes and adjustment layers in Photoshop to start figuring out the lighting. I want to make sure I evoke a happy, safe, creative, and hopeful mood.

Using the thumbnail, I built a model in Blender to help me finalize the composition and perspective. 

While I was creating the model, I had the idea of decorating the greenhouse with more paintings that were made by people who visit the greenhouse, so I put up some empty canvases on the walls. To be filled later!

Credit for the plant: 

With a vague idea of "greenhouse" I started sketching ideas of what it might look like and how it might be used. I liked the idea of the greenhouse being a safe and creative space, in addition to being a garden. 

While I originally thought about showing the greenhouse from the outside, I realized it was the inside that mattered more. This was why I picked the bottom left image - it was more imporant to me to evoke the feeling of a safe and hopeful space, rather than showing off an intricate design.

I was inspired by the image of the house made up of windows and doors to imagine a greenhouse as my oasis. I liked the idea of a greenhouse for two reasons:

1) I am always inspired by the beauty of everyday nature...
2) But I'm not exactly an outdoorsy person. I am an indoor cat at heart

Also, I liked the juxtaposition of the man-made greenhouse to the natural environment inside of it, but in this case, the man-made thing is nurturing, not harming. 

I started brainstorming for this piece back in late June. After word vomiting, I knew the most important feature for my oasis was something sustainable. I did some initial research on sustainable homes, and while they were all very cool, none of it felt like *me.*

After feeling stuck and un-inspired, I found one image that particularly resonated with me, which was this house made up of old windows and doors. I always love the idea of re-using old, discarded materials to make something beautiful and new. 

(I somehow completely missed this wip component on the platform, so apologies for posting retroactively!)