Today's is Carmen Mondragón, who is actually more notorious for posing "shamelessly" for other artists (yes, men, you guessed it) than she is for her own artwork. It's no wonder they all wanted to paint her—she's beautiful in a kind of Clara Bow smokey-eyed way.
Today's demo was done almost completely in straight watercolor, and then the person (Lee Anne Hahn-Washburn) went back in with pen, but it was a brown Micron pen so it was more subtle than my usual style of black pen. Since I haven't painted anything in watercolors in ages (opting for the Daler Rowney inks for months now). I decided to make this painting straight watercolor, no inks, no pens, just me and my brush and my palette of Paul Jacksons.
I was intrigued by the way Lee Anne painted the portrait, because she started with the shadows in a pale purple, then strengthened them in a brighter purple, then put in the blush tones in pinks and reds, darkened the shadows with some brown, and only then did she go back and do any skin tone in the space remaining on the face. Since I usually do the opposite—start with a coat of "flesh" and build from there—I decided to try it her way instead, and I must say I liked it.
Another reason for straight watercolor was that the model's hair was pure blonde on the tips and faded out around her to a sort of glowing halo, and I wanted to see if I could duplicate it. Not quite...but not bad.
I decided at the last minute that I would include a piece of the artist's own work in her portrait; she mostly painted big-eyed girls like her (in fact, a lot of self portraits!) and cats. So I added one of her cats. Her style was charming, if somewhat primitive, and I think the cat adds a little to this.
"Carmen Mondragón"—Paul Jackson watercolors on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress paper, approximately 8x10 inches, with India ink and white gel pen used for the cat.
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