Week 18, redux

Today I decided to try that assignment again by Lara Provost on LFI2021, mostly because I loved the colors she used for her background and wanted to do a painting with those instead of the brighter, more earthy ones I used on my reading girl. Again, however, I am working in watercolors instead of acrylics, and it's hard to get those defined random strokes of color like she did, unless you do an undercoat, let it dry, and then go over the top with other layers, and I wanted a more spontaneous result. So I threw in some of the same colors, and then primed them with water to run in various directions and give me a more watery and less defined look while still including the germane tints.

My model is my Facebook friend and portrait-painter extraordinaire Sassa Wilkes, who recently cut her hair and obligingly provided a selfie to steal. With her light eyes and russet hair, I thought she'd be the perfect subject to go over this backdrop.

She has such delicate redhead skin tones that I didn't want to do my usual double outline of black pen, I wanted to leave it soft to go both with her and with the watery, delicate background. So I used a brown Pitt Artist Pen sparingly, just to define edges and work on her eyelids and lashes, and the only place where I used black was for her pupils.

I don't use white watercolor, so for the highlights I laid down some white Daler Rowney ink in the spots I needed it, and let that dry before I did the rest of the picture. It worked pretty well!

"Sassa, Shorn"—Daler Rowney inks (background), pencil, Paul Jackson watercolors (foreground), Pitt pen, Uniball pens in black and silver, white Signo gel pen, on Fluid coldpress 140-lb. watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.