Day Three

Since portraits have dominated my artwork over the past nine months or so, I decided I needed to find out if I could paint one without any underdrawing of pencil or overdrawing of ink, for the 30x30 challenge. I found a beautiful photo of a redhead lifting her face to the sun that was all shades of orange and almost nothing else, and took it on.

I didn't get the extreme tilt of her head into the sun, although I made the features consistent enough with this tilt that you wouldn't know it unless you looked at the reference photo. I did my best to capture it by doing minimal pale orange around the outline of the face, but didn't quite make it. But she still has the feel of a face bathed in sunlight, and I managed to save most of the white highlights for once. I used a deep red-purple to emphasize the darks and paint in the shadows, and everything else is two shades of orange plus a little burnt sienna in the hair. The background is Naples yellow on the left and whatever the sludge mix was in my palette on the right.

I'll try some more portraits as the month progresses.

"30x21_Sunny Redhead"—PJ watercolors in Bee mixed media sketchbook, approx. 8x11 inches.