Too many photos documenting a creepy painting

Like it says on the tin, here's too many pictures about a painting I did.

Concept sketches plus first background layer. Pretty sure I was dry brushing with a pastry brush, but it was in my brushes so.

Background. Layers of acrylic and gloss medium and ink and alcohol ink....

Using chalk to outline the composition. Chalk is 100% my best friend for big paintings like this.

Had to take a moment and draw a rough design on myself to see how it would look with a smirk like she has. I had decided at this point that instead of painting her make-up in black, I wanted to have the original background show through to push a more ethereal look instead of just woman with spooky make-up.

When I do big mixed media paintings, I always go ahead and paint in some white acrylic where I intend to add oil later. It makes it a lot easier to see what I am doing and also usually seals in the background so it won't interfere with my oils. Usually. This time, I did layer after layer after layer and the damn alcohol inks just kept bleeding through, which was fine everywhere except where it was doing it the worst, her eye. I finally used heavy matte medium to seal in the eyes and all the skeletal spots. I also used some molding paste to texture up the hair, because at this point, why not? This is before it dried.

Eyes, in. And already I'm seeing I am miles and miles better at oil painting than I was when I made the other creepy mixed media paintings in my room. 

(It was at this point I had to take a 3 day break from painting to assist people with online gambling on the kentucky derby. I have learned so many things about horse racing, most of which being that I don't give a fuuuuck about horse racing.)

And you know on my first day off I got right back to it. Her face in progress. Taking a selfie with the make-up and smirk was so worth it, that's one of my favorite details in the entire painting.

Finishing up on her face and neck and that. The kid voted I leave her hair ghostly, but I thought there wasn't quite enough contrast. I did take his vote into consideration though and kept it lighter than I had planned.

So she ended up a pretty bleached out strawberry blonde, which is perfect.

And all done. This post is long enough so I'll save a comparison of my creepy paintings over time for another post, but I have to say I am completely over the moon with her and somewhat shocked how much I've improved in the last few years that I have been doing these.