Me for real

My ego couldn't take it, so I did one that looks more normal, while still trying to be realistic and capture all of my features as they appear. This was right after a hair-washing, and in artificial light, so one side really showed up blonde-gold.

The mouth came out a lot more pursey than it actually was in the photo—instead of a wry smile it looks like I am smelling something bad—but I'm sure that this, too, is an expression familiar to my face, so I'll keep it!

ME4real
Uniball, watercolor, Bee sketchbook

Unflattering selfie day

Today, for some reason, I decided to paint a painfully accurate and therefore not so flattering portrait of myself. In looking back at some of the pictures I have painted of my friends, I realized that the thing most fun about painting them was to include every detail, warts and all, but that I have refrained from doing that when it comes to myself. So, friends, here is your revenge for my career of brutal portrait honesty.

I couldn't quite bring myself to paint a "straight" portrait, that is, with a normal expression, so I shot a few reactionary selfies. This is "dismay," which I registered after reading an article this morning revealing that Covid 19 triggers the body to make blood clots. My dismay is extreme, because I already have a tendency to create clots, and have been taking a blood thinner for some time now to guard against that! What else will come from this horrid virus?!

Sorry to be Debbie Downer. All the more reason to stay home (forever?). Anyway, here I am, warts and all. Tomorrow (or maybe later today), I'll go back to more upbeat topics. (No, I didn't cut my hair, it's back in a messy braid.)

"Me, dismayed"

Uniball pen, watercolor, in Bee sketchbook

Interesting perspectives

Today's effort for the "People reading" series was from a picture of my Facebook friend, Yevgenia, who sent me a photo of her reading a book while lying in a hammock. I wasn't initially drawn to it, because I didn't think there was enough of a background there, but the more I looked at it, the more I wanted to paint such an interesting perspective—a person lying horizontal and holding the book above her.

It definitely turned out to be a challenge, and I ended up having to rotate the photo and my paper in order to capture it properly! But I think I caught it pretty well, and I love the stripy hammock as background.

"Yevgenia Reads"
pencil and watercolor in Bee sketchbook

I wasn't planning to paint today—I had designated it as a chore day, and had a whole list lined up. But when my yard guy knocked on the door and told me that there was a leak in the main water line from my house to the street (mushy feet from stepping into the flower bed to weed), that pretty much changed the day to one of standing by while a plumber and his helper dug a trench in my front yard to replace my ancient (1948!) galvanized pipe with a copper one. So, since I couldn't leave the house, I painted.

They didn't finish, they'll be back tomorrow, so I may get another painting out of it if I can't use the water and I can't leave the house!

People reading in context

One person in my inner circle actually paid attention when I asked for reference photos in which they were reading a book from within a scene. Although I enjoy painting the close-up portraits of people and their books, I mostly want to paint pix of people in context of their daily life. Heidi sent me a good one, because it was also outdoors on her patio, which is not the usual for reading nooks.

My biggest regret with this one is that I didn't stop and think to do it on watercolor paper. I did it in my sketchbook, but because I'm including the entire scene, everything was fairly small, and it was hard to get good detail work on the sketchbook paper surface. I may end up doing this one again sometime. I entirely overworked some parts, while others are lacking subtlety because of the inability to shadow as well on this thinner paper.

I hope it's recognizably Heidi, even though it's small and hard to define features at that size. I did a little editing of the scene, including changing the fence and leaving out some objects for simplicity's sake. I also had to slightly redesign both the cover and the type content on the book—I always underestimate the amount of room needed to write things and have to simplify!

Pencil, micron pen (on book), watercolors, in Bee sketchbook.