A layered Boleyn

This piece certainly started out as something different than it ended up. Each step was logical, most of them didn't work, and so the next one was designed to cover that one up and move on to something that might.

I've been cutting stuff out of magazines and old journals and such for a while now, saving up words and phrases and sometimes pictures to perhaps use as collage elements in painted pieces. I came across a picture of Henry VIII (I'm Henry the VIII, I am) and thought it might be fun to incorporate it into a portrait of Anne Boleyn, his second ill-fated bride.

I found a picture online of an actress playing the part, and I decided to try a new technique: I drew her in charcoal, then went over her with a few pastel ink colors, and then glued on my collage elements, afterwards painting over everything with a thin coat of gesso. My aim was to be able to see both the drawing and the subtle colors through the gesso and emphasize the important features in another layer, but the charcoal I used was so hard that it didn't come out very dark, and in the end I couldn't see much.

At that point I decided to draw her in ink instead, using a sketchy line, which worked okay; but the ink colors I had also expected to show through the gesso were so faint as to be virtually indiscernible. So I got the inks back out and painted in some shadows and colors, gave her lips and eyes some definition, and added costume, including jewelry.

For all the effort I had gone to, I might as well have just painted onto white paper! But I did like the way the gesso faded back the collage elements, so I guess that was okay. The background pattern on her left was an unexpected accident: I put on a layer of Payne's Grey, decided, after a minute, that it was too dark, and went to lift it with paper towel, but it had dried just enough that the pattern from the toweling was left in the paint. I then went over it with olive green to warm up the background, but the pattern still showed through. I like it—it looks like wallpaper. But I couldn't get the same clear effect on the right no matter what I tried. I guess it doesn't matter, since Henry is on that side.

 

"Anne Boleyn"—charcoal, acrylic inks, gesso, Uniball pen, gluestick, collage, on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.