Feeling my way

Today I wanted to try doing a semi-abstract background and then put a portrait on top of it. So I taped off parts of the paper, and on other parts I pressed bubble wrap to the ink to give texture, and I watered the ink here and there so it would run, and tilted the pad of paper back and forth to get it to go in different directions, and got a fun background. But who to put on it?

I went through a bunch of reference photos I recently downloaded from Unsplash, and this girl jumped out at me. I wanted the challenge of the extreme tilt of her face, with everything foreshortened and leading with her chin. I also loved her wild head of ringlets, and even the dress she was wearing.

So, I started working on her, using only ink at first; but I couldn't get some of it dark enough over the top of the intense colors in the background, so I looked around for a remedy. I had just received an order from Dick Blick that included a complete set of Conté "crayons," which are a little finer texture than straight charcoal but operate in much the same manner, and come in varying shades of brown, sepia, sanguine, noir, and white. And since the first challenge I was having was getting the highlights in her face to stand out, when the paper behind it happened to be dyed dark turquoise, I broke out the white one and, starting there, gradually went over most of her face with the varying shades. I haven't used charcoal since drawing class at Valley College in 1999, so I had to get used to a different kind of shading.

At first, I just painted her hair with Payne's Grey, but again, it wasn't strong enough against the background, so I went back in with the charcoal-colored conté, and pulled ringlets out, then smudged them with my finger. It ended up being a little too smudgy, so I tried some Elegant Writer, but it wouldn't activate much over the top of everything else, so I also accented the ends of the curls with my Uniball. Then I decorated her dress with the Uniball and some gel pens, and decided I had gone far enough!

The colors and textures  under the face and neck are a little weird, but I think it gives some extra personality. I don't have any fixitive, so I went over the hair with some more Payne's Grey, hoping to lock the charcoal into the paper, but I will eventually have to get some to seal off the face as well. I scanned it successfully, but had to wipe down my scanner glass after!

  

"Jamilah"—Daler Rowney inks, Conté crayons, Uniball pen, gel pens, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.