Medium mystery

Today's Sktchy portrait was a fun exercise, although as usual I didn't do it the way I was told. This time it wasn't entirely by choice—I DO want to learn to use gouache, and was looking forward to this portrait—but I couldn't find my gouache! I bought half a dozen tubes back about nine months ago to do a project for Sketchbook Skool, but after that was over, I did an unprecedented thing: I thought of a place I could store it, and I put it away. Don't remember where, though, and a fairly superficial search didn't turn it up, so...back to watercolor.

The thing that was fun about this was, I tried painting it in watercolor mostly the way Jordan Rhodes (today's teacher) was painting it in gouache, by laying down geometric shapes in increasingly darker colors and letting them be more shape-y instead of blending everything to the extremes I usually go. I especially enjoyed making the dark folds of the scarf in burnt sienna and then coming back in over the top with a beautiful blue-green color that picked up some of the sienna for a whole new mix.

There were certain things I couldn't do in watercolor, such as make a white shirt for her (don't have any, never use it), although I did manage to do some highlights on the face by scribbling with my white gel pen and then quickly washing it over with a wet brush before it dried. I also wish I'd done something different for the background, but it's almost impossible to eliminate a hard line in watercolor once you have put it in, so I decided to leave it as is. I thought about blacking it all out with India ink, but...fear.

She ended up looking a little more ghostly than his did, mostly because I thought I was picking up the tan-toned paper but instead picked up the gray, and didn't notice until I had already done the complete drawing. I wasn't going to switch at that point, so I made the best of it, but she's not as warm as she could be!

3SktchyWG_Jordan—pencil and watercolor on Strathmore Toned Gray Mixed Media 184-lb. paper, 9x11 inches.

Addendum: I changed the background. I think it's better...though very dark.