Fitting it in

Between doing annoying (but apparently necessary according to the Franchise Tax Board!) back taxes and coping with plumbing problems, I haven't been able to take the time to focus on making a painting these past few days. I split my time between searching for paperwork and plunging the kitchen sink, calling people for errant W4s, trying to understand the questions in TurboTax, boiling water to dump down the sink in the hopes it would loosen whatever was clogging things up...not conducive at all to creativity. But after yesterday's debacle with the initial plumber I contacted (he showed up three hours late and then didn't have a pipe wrench with him!), followed by seeking out a legitimate guy and getting him to come look at the problem and give me a quote, I also had to spend today waiting for him to arrive and then trying not to hover while he did the work.

I hesitated to start something at first, but then decided that I could at least lay down the base drawing and then maybe, once he arrived and started dismantling the pipes, I would have time to make the painting (also preventing me from hovering). This plan proved doable (although I did the second half of the painting after he left, he was so quick!).

I decided to go back to a "loose" watercolor style—the kind I refined through taking Fiona Di Pinto's mini lesson on Etchr—but this time with a reference photo chosen by me, and in richer tones and colors. Her pose turned out looking a bit awkward, since in the photo she is leaning forward with her forearms crossed on a table but in this format I only had room to show her shoulders and upper arms. I should have either drawn smaller or used larger paper! But I'm mostly happy with the bloominess around her features and the intensity of her gaze. Her hair was much darker than this, but I ran out of my dark sepia and had to mix ultramarine and burnt sienna to get this lighter shade of brown.

"Ella"—pencil and Paul Jackson watercolors on Strathmore 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.