The Design Process:
I’m embarking on the first part of a long-term goal to archive all of my paintings and present them in a new online gallery. I currently have a gallery with Fine Art America, but I’m thinking I would like to have one that I curate myself on my own website as well. I wanted to share my process for creating it – a sort of behind the scenes look as it comes together. It will be a long process but I think it’s time to get started on it.
The first step is to create a template for the images. I decided to use my watercolor portrait of my mother, Juana Maria, as my test image. This is how the template design started:
This process has taken some time and is challenging because I’m looking to create the best balance between the information I need to display and the artwork itself. There needs to be a title, my name, my studio name & website, plus a copyright mark in addition to the image.
I decided the first design was too colorful, so I took out all the color (except for the Lupita), but still too many distractions from the painting itself. I then went to full black and white for the info, playing around with the shades of gray in each area.
Still too many distractions for the eye…so I took out the flowers and immediately loved the change.
A few final touches – took out the ” ” around the title, resized everything to one inch distances, took out the butterfly…then put it back again.
Then I tried it out with several different pieces of art to make sure it will translate across projects.
And there I have my template. Whew…it took a lot longer than I expected, but I’m glad I experimented and found a design that works best for my artwork overall. Next up – scanning all my paintings (there’s still a drawer full not yet scanned), digitally archiving them, and placing each image into the template to upload into my gallery.
Sending wishes for a beautiful day,
~Emily Lupita
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Then I add in special aspects like crowns, bubbles, stripes and flowers to give the design the light-hearted character I try to have in all my Lupita paintings.
And here she is – my first owl painting. I’m calling it “Sweet Owl” and hope to make a few more Lupita Owls over the next couple of days. 
