Susan: Portrait in Feathered Mask and Tiger Dress Painting

This gouache portrait features a lovely matte textured paint with visible brush strokes. It is a deeper exploration of a portrait originally drawn in my 2011 sketchbook (see image in additional pics). The painting features a stylized woman's face, she has overly large green eyes and a long slender neck, a billowing cloud of black hair rises behind her and a brightly colored and patterned feathered mask sweeps up and away from her face, framing her eyes rather dramatically. She wears a square necked dress in teal and emerald green, printed with a rather joyful naive tiger print. An army of vague, smiling tigers in pink, peach and orange march along the dress to the right. Behind the subject, the wall is papered with a vibrant floral print, dahlia style flowers bloom jauntily across a deep blue ground, in orange, scarlet, carmine, neon pink and deep aubergine purple while ribbons of turquoise and emerald vine spool through and behind the blossoms. The piece is large at 20x16 inches, and is painted on cradled board, ready to frame or hang as is. It has been sprayed with two coats of UV protective varnish to seal the paint to the board and protect the lovely intense colors from fading.