The Poppy Maiden - A painting in Artrage 5

The image above is a painting I recently did in Artrage 5. I love painting in Artrage...it is one of the easiest painting programs available, and is great for people just getting started in digital painting. Of course, it is also awesome software for the experienced digital painter.

I was reading the Artrage forum one day, and came across some brushes in the Art Supplies category, made and generously given by Lord Whinknshire. There are a lot of great art supplies shared in the Art Supplies category made by people outside of Artrage staff.

My workflow went something like this:
I have been wanting to practice my sketching skills (which are greatly lacking) so, first I found a reference image that I wanted to use from morguefile.com. I had no idea where the final painting would go, but I liked the profile on this image.

First I went into Photoshop and expanded the image canvas so that I would be able to paint the top of her head and gave myself some room on the bottom, too. 
I made my canvas in Artrage the same size as the image I had just expanded in Photoshop.
I brought the image into Artrage as a reference image.

I added a new layer above the main bottom layer and brought in a brown texture background image. I blended that layer some so that it looked more painterly.

I created a new layer and sketched the main elements of the girl.

On a new layer below the sketch layer,  I roughly blocked in the main colors with the texture paint brush in the Zed-Ink category.
I then blended the blocked-in paint with a palette knife>just blend color brush.

On a new layer just above the background, (but below the girl) I added some sticker spray accents in yellow and brown. 

I decided I needed some flowers and chose poppies. I found some images of poppies on the internet (there are many!) and brought them into artrage.

I painted and blended the poppies, then, as shown in finished painting, I added some ink outlines and more sticker spray accents in yellow over the flowers. I also added a few black ink spatters here and there.

The colored dots in her hair were achieved by (on a separate layer) adding some yellow paint splats and setting the blending mode to color dodge.

These are the brushes I used to make the finished painting:
Zed-Ink Brushes>Texture Paint>loading>60-75%
For blending:
Palette knife>just blend color
For accents:
Sticker Spray>Art Clippings>Paint Splats
Inked Lines:
Just a regular ink pen

I hope you enjoyed my journey from an image to a painting in Artrage 5.

Thanks for looking! xxx