Week 18

I completely forgot last week to do the LFI2021 lesson for the week, so this morning I took a look. I liked the lesson, but...I'm getting bored with painting pictures of pretty women with no point to them. So I did something a little different.

This week's teacher, Lara Provost, made her abstract background with acrylics (left, below) and then painted over the top of them in oil, mostly obscuring the background with her subject (right, below).  I really liked the background, but it was almost completely covered by the end, and I felt like what's the point?

I decided to try something similar, but using watercolors and leaving more of the base colors showing through the subject. I also chose a reference photo with a reading girl, because I need to keep adding to my repertoire of reading people.

Here's my initial background:

In my chosen photo, the subject was holding her book with a couple of fingers right down at the bottom of the spine, but it was a small photo and, when I blew it up, didn't give me much to work with, so I simply dropped the bottom part of the book below the bottom of the photo so I could leave them out. It also had the other arm with the elbow elevated and her head resting against the forearm behind it, but when I drew it (sticking exactly to the photo), it looked weird and deformed, so I took it out again!

I was going to paint out the wall behind her, but I liked the interesting edges too much, so I just dropped the top part back a shade by covering it with a layer of white ink.

This one was a bit messy because I painted the background in watercolors, and when I started using the gesso and inks over the top of them, the watercolors lifted back up. So there's a little bit more mingling than I had planned.

I kinda regret painting in the flower pattern on the sofa; or at least this flower pattern. I should have done something more natural-looking with blossoms and leaves instead of this retro Mod-ish fabric. But, can't go back and fix that, so there it is.

I was going to letter in the title of the book she was reading, but decided that if it was a book someone didn't like, they might take against the art as a whole, while simply having sun and moon shapes on the cover gives a feeling of fantasy or whimsy without being specific as to the contents. (It was The Alchemist, by Paolo Coehlo.)

I had to scan this in two pieces and patch it together, since it's 12x12 and my scanner is 9x12. Someday, a bigger scanner!

"Reading Alchemy"—Paul Jackson watercolors, pencil, Uniball pen, gesso, Daler Rowney inks, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 12x12 inches.