The Picnic

A child's pretend picnic with her stuffed toys turned real. When children play make believe they are fully immersed in their imaginations, their play goes beyond just pretending, to fully believing that they are a part of their make believe world. It was inspired for this piece by watching my daughter sit all her stuffed toy animals in a circle in her bedroom and lovingly serve wooden play food to each one. She then removed all the food to replace it with pretend cakes. This piece allows us to see what a little pretend play picnic in a child's bedroom might look like if we were inside their imagination. This piece was painted in watercolour, I start by taking a reference photo, in this case I just took a picture of my daughter playing, then I roughly create the idea I’d like to paint using photoshop or procreate, then I paint it in watercolour on cotton paper. Feel free to explore the process of how I go from the reference photo to the final piece on twitter @aimeedelvalle_ or check out my website for more of my work www.aimeedelvalle.com.