Oil on Panel
20″ x 14″
Available
“Young Queen of Sheba” is painted in “azuraccio” blue/grey oils with the color of the noonday sun mixed in. This is a portrait of a young girl from the Tsmay tribe in the Omo Valley of Southern Ethiopia. My husband, Brad, took the picture on a mission trip. The young girl wanted to take her veil off to pose for the photo but Brad wisely asked her to keep it on, which made the photo much more interesting to paint.
Texture is added to this painting using Renaissance marble dust gesso. The adobe wall is also textured using a palette knife with the gesso. The highest points of her veil are built up in relief using gesso to catch the light.
I like using texture in some of my paintings because it adds interest and dimension. Texture also differentiates oil painting from the flatness of photography.
The painting is named “Young Queen of Sheba” because the Biblical Queen of Sheba is from Ethiopia.
Young Queen of Sheba is painted on an un-tempered Masonite panel which was coated with five layers of Renaissance marble gesso. I kept this version of Young Queen of Sheba in the azuraccio under-painting blue-gray color. The painting is coated with five layers of damar varnish. It should last hundreds of years if kept out of direct sunlight.