What I didn't take into account is that the hair I designed based on her ringlets was too harsh in color(s) and too segmented to go with the delicate facial features. The hair simply overwhelmed the effect I was going for in the face—it needed to be paler, or at least less defined.
I then decided to add collage by using some polka-dotted tissue paper as material for her dress. I liked it; but the contrast with her hair was, again, all wrong, and the white and red fabric would have looked better on someone with darker (i.e., not stark white) skin. I attempted to bring it all together by adding in some reds and pinks in the rest of her features, but the result was still fairly pallid. Also, the fact that she has her eyes closed meant that I couldn't make those the focus of the picture, as I usually would, and so I had to rely on the other features for interest.
After adding a mix of Crimson and Payne's Grey in the background, I decided I was done and set it aside to dry, but I kept feeling dissatisfied with it. It lacked depth, it lacked character, it lacked pizzazz. So, I decided to mess about with it.
First, I added some Stabilo All pencil around the outside. The characteristic of this pencil is that if you wet it, it darkens and bleeds a little, so you can get a nice dark outline with it. But in this case, it didn't do much of anything for my picture. Also, while I had inked over the edges of the collaged dress, the edges were looking messy. So I ended up pulling out a black Elegant Writer pen, and going around the entire figure and also around the dress edges, then bleeding that out with water to give the figure and dress a nice dark outline and to give the hair a kind of halo.
It's not what I was planning; but I think I like it a little better with the changes I made. And experiments are how you find out what you like!
"Dottie"—Daler Rowney inks, Uniball pen, Stabilo All, Elegant Writer, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.
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