Out of control

It seems that my art is being quite dictatorial these days. I apparently have no say over what style I choose to do—the art is telling me what it wants. I set out today to paint a wonky portrait, but without conscious choice my hand decided to do it straight instead. I had even cut out a word to run down my subject's nose to convey my sense of her, but since the portrait insisted on being realistic, I made the word serve the role of her shoulder instead, just so I could include it.

This is my friend Kirsti; I was inspired to paint her because she posted a photo "reveal" today showing that she had let her hair go to its natural color, which is a beautiful smooth mix of white and silver-gray, and which looks fantastic. So I used my gray-tone paper to help with the hair color, and then had to work twice as hard to warm up the facial features against it. It was worth it for the way the white stands out against the toned paper, though.

This may be the closest likeness I have ever gotten to Kirsti. I have painted her multiple times, and some weren't even recognizably her! I don't know what is so challenging, but I may have finally captured a good one. Here are all the others:

 

And here is the new one:

"Classic"—pencil, Daler Rowney inks, watercolors, Uniball pen, Signo white gel pen, on Strathmore 184-lb. Toned-Gray Mixed Media paper, approx. 8x10 inches.