On my own

There's always that moment, after you take a class and you practice what the teacher has to share, doing the assignments as instructed, that you have to make the decision: Do I want to keep this method? Does it work for me, with my style? Can I adapt it so that it's not just a copy of what my instructor was modeling? Can I somehow make it my own?

I guess this is that moment for me and the "Emma Petitt method." I am still using the abstract layered background, and painting a girl over the top, but this one feels more like me. I had a couple of objectives: I wanted to include hands and a torso, to practice painting more than just a face and shoulders; and I was tired of painting pretty, pouty, glamorous girls—I wanted to paint someone expressing some emotion, and use an appropriate color scheme in the background to complement that feeling.

I found a photo and changed a lot of things about it—the hair, the clothing, a little bit of the expression, the coloring—but I kept the upraised defensive hands and the "shout." I don't think she looks frightened, exactly—more surprised, shocked, and fending off something, whether physical or emotional. And the color scheme of orange, red, and black, softened by the blush color, works with the "temperature" of the piece. I really wanted to add in some blue, but instead settled for moving some of the yellow-green color from her eyes around the rest of the picture. It keeps the theme more strident.

I had some trouble with the anatomy, because the photo reference had long hair covering the neck and shoulders, so I wasn't able to see their precise position. I shifted both shoulders a couple of times, and I think they are close to where they should be, given the foreshortening on the one side. In the photo, the foreshortened side hand is much closer to the viewer than is the other one, and I didn't manage that—the hand should have been bigger. I'm too close to the work right now to see if it looks deformed because of relative proximity, I'll take another look later.

The teeth were an interesting challenge, and were repainted several times. I'm still not sure I couldn't do better, but I do know that outlining them was not the right solution! Ha!

Over all, I'm satisfied with my first experiment branching out from the past few weeks' practice. More to come!

"Back Off"—charcoal, acrylics, Stabilo All black pencil, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 12x16 inches.