This is 60?

Today, my friend Susan Sabo turned 60. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't remember it was her birthday until I saw it on Facebook, but I immediately jumped into new Wonky mode to paint her a birthday picture. What a challenge it turned out to be!

I did "lesson 3," which includes an undercoat of gesso on your paper in which you make marks, which gives your paint lots of nice texture. I don't know what happened this time—maybe the gesso coat was too thick, maybe it's that I'm using different paper (I ran out of my Fluid and started using Strathmore, which I don't like much but had in the house), or maybe there was just a weird combo of heat and humidity today, but whatever it was, "mess" was the operative word.

The paint beaded up and rolled off the gesso when I tried to do colors for an undercoat. Then I did my drawing in pencil, went over it with my Uniball as I always do, waited a few minutes for the ink to dry, and jumped into watercolor/ink application, only to discover that the Uniball ink, which is usually completely waterproof once dry, was running as if it was water soluble! All my yellows immediately went muddy, the face tones grayed out, nothing was working. Because I didn't want to start over again after working on the thing for hours, I kept plugging away, renewing colors where possible, and dealing with the rest in various ways.

The other problem I had was that nothing would cover. Everything was lifting above the gesso and running around the page. And once everything finally dried and I tried to do ornamentation with my white gel pen, it flat-out wouldn't write on the surface. It would write on the black gesso background, fortunately, so I was able to do the lettering, but the rest of the face, which was going to be quite decorative, is instead very plain—no white dots or spots, no circles or flourishes, so basically, no "wonk." I did manage to make her eyes look like they belong to a fish, so there's that...if we consider that an advantage. And the dogs turned out pretty cute. Small consolations are in order at the moment.

I may try this again on watercolor paper without the gesso and see how it goes. Meanwhile, Happy Birthday, Susan! Lookin' good, girl!

White gesso, pencil, Uniball pen, Daler Rowney inks, watercolors, gel pen, black gesso, on Strathmore 140-lb. watercolor paper, approx. 10x7 inches.