Bored?

I've been wondering, since August, whether I would ever get bored by painting portraits, and I think today I hit that wall a little. It's mostly because I haven't painted one that really excited me for a little while; and also, I need to move into some new media and techniques to keep things fresh, but I'm flailing about in that area and not settling yet. So today I decided to make a traditional watercolor—that is, no pen, no white paint, no gimmicks or ornaments, just using watercolor and the white of the paper to convey my image.

This looks like it was done fast and sloppy with not much care, but honestly it took me as long to do as a portrait generally does, with less success. I'm not great with proportion and directionality when it comes to parallel and perpendicular surfaces, and I'm also a bit clumsy below a certain size. The entire painting is about 6x10 inches, with a fair amount of detail needed. I'm somewhat happy with the light, but everything else is kind of a mess, honestly.

Still, it was a nice break from painting facial features.

"Kim's girls"—pencil and watercolor on Fluid 140-lb. hotpress paper, 6x10 inches.