I slightly mislabeled things in my last post; lesson #2 was the creation of the background, while the painting of the two portraits is lessons #3 and #4. So today I redid lesson #2 by creating a new background, this time going bigger and also a lot less dense and with a lighter hand; and then repeated #3 by painting my vertical portrait.
I chose for my model an actress who plays a minor role in the TV miniseries Bridgerton; her name is Ruby Barker, and she plays the pregnant "cousin," Marina.
I was much happier with the results of my background this time, and planned more carefully how to keep the maximum underpainting showing in the final portrait. The dress shows a good percentage of underpainting, as does the hair and her chest. I also dropped the Prussian Blue and instead used a lighter and fresher color, Ultramarine Violet Light, which I really liked in combination with the other three colors and which also acted as a nice shadow/accent for the face.
I'm still getting the hang of painting with acrylics; although I love the abrupt brushy strokes Emma makes, it's hard for me (a veteran watercolor blender) to simply leave them alone! I also tend to put the paint on too thickly, only to have to scrub half of it off with a paper towel, but in this case that gave me some nice effects on which I was able to capitalize.
I enjoy working large, but I don't like it that I have to photograph the results rather than scan them; it's hard to get a flat photo without a shadow. In this case, the white at the upper left is every bit as white as that at the lower left.
"Ruby Marina"—gesso, charcoal, acrylics, and Stabilo "All" pencil on 140-lb. Fluid hotpress watercolor paper, 12x18 inches.
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