Painted Present!

A friend of mine bought a house earlier this year, and painted her guest room the most beautiful shade of grey.  Then I saw her vacation pictures and decided I needed to make her a piece of grey art for her guest room.

To start, I picked an image to work from. The Hippo from Fantasia.  I prepped my surface because I wasn't going to use a canvas, I used a piece of MDF instead. So I gesso'd it and got to work.

I cheated on drawing the image because it was the perfect size.  If I had to enlarge or decrease I would have used the "grid" method. But luck was on my side.  So I took my pencil and scribbled all over the back of the paper.  Then placed it on my MDF where I wanted it, and outlined my pretty ballerina hippo onto my board.

Then came the painting.  Following my image I filled in with my main color, and then went back in with darker and lighter grays.

How does she look? 

Not bad for only having one suitable paint brush in the house??  Of coarse I couldn't find any of my really good brushes!