I decided to repeat a technique I have done a couple of times, which is to make some crazy colorful hair, but paint only the shadows plus a little blush color on the figure herself, highlighting the eyes and lips but letting everything else be suggestion only.
I particularly liked this photo because I've been wanting to expand beyond face to include more of the figure, and this one included some intricately positioned hands.
I got a little carried away with the hair and lost the back of the white gown, so I painted over some of the hair with white gesso to restore it, and then messed about with it until it looked almost right. It didn't quite work, especially because the white over the top of the hair color won't come back to the original white of the paper (and also the paints tend to bead up a little over the top of gesso), but that's okay, it's a small part of the piece.
I went around the inner edge of the hair/outer edge of the face with a black Posca pen, just to accentuate a little. I tried to keep the lace on the sleeve more of a suggestion than I managed the other day (the ill-fated flannel nightgown debacle), and it's okay, although I would have liked it if it were even looser and less defined.
The background is a wash of olive green Daler Rowney ink (for some reason I don't have an olive in watercolor), and then while it was wet I flowed India ink over the top, making it darker on the shadow side and letting the green show through on the lighter side. I think it works...it's a little blotchy here and there, but not as bad as my usual backgrounds!
I really wanted to put in the model's freckles, but A. I didn't want to ruin something into which I had put so much time, and B. the drama of the pale figure on the dark background seemed somehow antithetical to something as frivolous as freckles.
"Bryce"—Uniball pen, watercolors, acrylic ink, India ink, Posca pen, white gesso, on coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.
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