Forever Missed... my angel sis

Recently, I drew a statue that sits in our backyard. My parents bought the statue to represent my dead sister, Emily. It's a little angel. 

I didn't even exist back when my sister was born, I wasn't there when she died three days later either, but I still love her and wanted to show my love for her. So, I decided to paint her as well.

Thus, the painting 'Forever Missed' was created!

This was painted using an underpainting and glazes.

My (dead) sister was the only child in my family with red hair, so I wanted to make sure to include that. I also dressed her in a rich blue dress as that is the religious color dating back to a long time ago (when blue was really expensive). I don't know why I made her wings lilac, I just thought that it would fit well.

Little Update: What have I been doing?

I have been trying a new technique for painting, which forces me to add more depth, because without it, after the first step, it would be all one color. Figure it out yet? My new technique is to do a gray/black&white underpainting, then glaze the colors over, letting the shadows and highlights show through. And, so far, it has been working brilliantly. I've only used this technique a few times so far, but every time I do, the paintings have more depth than those without the underpainting.

Here's my first time doing underpainting and glazes in acrylics:

This was my first step: the underpainting in black and white

This was my first layer of glazes, and I added the wings 

Many glazes later...

The finished product: Blessed Nature