Color Test for "New Beginnings"

   As the Enchanted Visions Project resumes activity, the first monthly theme (for October 2012) is "New Beginnings".  A fresh start.  A beginning of something new.  A new life.  A new commitment.  The title brings up a lot of ideas.  As I pondered on the prompt, the idea of a wedding or a marriage came to my mind as it is a new beginning of a life together with someone.  But since I don't like to do just pretty faces and call it 'fantasy' simply because it is a mermaid, a witch, a fairy, or it has sparkles, etc., I thought about it a little further and came up with the idea of drawing a Chinese bride with an elaborate headdress with the fantasy twist of a phoenix, which is traditionally associated in the Chinese wedding decor along with a dragon.  They are as ubiquitous as the color scheme of red and gold.

  In feng shui, both the dragon and the phoenix, when presented alone, are yang animals, being said to have 'male' energy.  But when these two are presented together, the phoenix represents the 'female' energy, the bride, while the dragon symbolizes the groom.  So I decided to depict the bride here with the celestial phoenix appearing before her to bring the blessings and good fortune.

   This is a quick color test I did to help me visualize the red and gold in the image overall.  I may experiment further with the background colors, but I like the purple and brown to go with the red and gold.  This one is going to be fun to color. :D