I did an undercoating of pink, and then threw some orange and some raw sienna into it and sprayed to mix. When that dried, I drew straight onto the page with ink, which used to be an incredibly risky thing to do; but I have become increasingly sure of myself when it comes to placing lines in a face, and I did pretty well on this one. The only flaw was that I tilted her mouth up too much on the right and down on the left, so that it's not sitting quite where it should below her nose. But I didn't take that class with Deb Weiers for nothing: I obfuscated that by going back into the portrait later and doubling up my lines everywhere, making them more loose and sketchy than the first time around, so that everything has a little illusion of movement, and the slant of the lips doesn't look as critical when there are multiple lines straightening them out a bit. Ha!
After the ink dried, I went back in with the pertinent colors—white for highlights, raw sienna and burnt umber for her hair, and for her skin a judicious mix of pink, orange, purple, and a tiny bit of payne's grey for shadow, and lastly a pop of turquoise for her eyes, echoing it again in the shirt, but with other colors showing through from the underwash.
I decided to leave the sunglasses off this time, because I know the limits of my abilities, and drawing them straight onto the paper in ink was bound to be a disaster. I could have penciled them in first, but I skipped them instead, just for a change.
I'm not sure but what I prefer this one, done in about an hour and a half, to the one I spent so many hours on, with pencil, acrylics, and Stabilo. We'll see what Cathleen has to say. Although she'll probably just end up with a twofer, and she can decide for herself which to frame and hang!
"CathleenTransparent," Uniball Vision pen and Daler Rowney inks on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.
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