Aimee Owl's Creative Inventions: How She Does It- Painting Process

Hello, my pretties!! I am starting a new segment today! Yay! Called How She Does It, it is mainly going to be my DIY or photography or editing* or painting or...you get my drift. It's how I personally do things compared to how you are 'supposed' to.
Anyway! Here is my first How She Does It, and it is how I get photos for painting.
I am a huge fan of color. Bright, happy, color! Asked me a few years ago, I would have said black and red were my favorite colors, but now just any mix of colors is my favorite! I do take a lot of my paintings from photos or pictures, and this one is no exception.

*Just so everyone knows I mostly use Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9 for editing. I do have Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 installed as well as Corel Painter Essentials 4, but I grew up using PSP, so am finding it hard to change to Photoshop!

Okay, So I in fact have not painted this yet, I got the initial set up done, and then I will be painting it in the next few days. So first off, I find a photo that I like. I found this one of my sister when she was younger, working in our garden. After I find one, I reduce the colors in it.

(Click to make larger)

I usually go for 16 colors (the second on that list) but this time I went with the last option X Colors (4/8 bit)

I just played around with the colors till I got the following

I went with 12 in the end. (So 12 main colors present)

I then decided what I wanted to keep in the painting and what I didnt. I decided to get rid of the house behind it, except for the main brick wall.

I will be filling it with paint in the painting stage. It wont be that stand out-y!

I wont be painting my other sisters head either, but I wanted to keep the scene normal.

So thats what I would paint. The colors are ones that I can easily mix and it would be quite easy. But I mentioned my love for color. So while that is what I normally do, with this picture I would probably do something like this.

Happy times!

So much more color!!! This one was just a quick show and tell, so I dont like some of the colors (too much purple!) but for the idea, this is how I did it.

Now, I dont personally touch the Lightness meter, I let that stay the same. But I move Saturation up and Hue down. Whatever you decide, colors would be different (which is how i wouldnt get so much purple)

All the meters start on 0.

Anyway, that is how I do my paintings! Here is an example of one I did just recently.