The power of suggestion

I am enjoying the employment of random backgrounds to suggest the subject matter for each next painting. I don't know how much longer I will pursue this trend, but it's fun to use the leftover paint from the previous work to create a new background that in turn dictates the kind of painting that will be made next.

After I painted Leonor Fini, the colors I mostly had left over were all the ones used for her skin tones—Naples Yellow, Titan Mars Pale, and some Magenta. I used them to make a new background, but wondered what I would do with one so relentlessly, well, PINK. Today, though, I browsed my saved reference photos and found one of a wonderful old lady with bright blue eyes, wrapped up in a hat and fur coat and standing in front of a gray coastline. Her face was such a beautiful combination of white, pink, and a little pale blue/lavender that I knew I had found today's subject. Here's an early "process" photo to show how I started.

As I did with the others, I almost used the paint more as a stain than as an opaque coating, allowing the background to show through or at least to dictate what I used on top of it so as to preserve its effect.

I didn't reproduce the cold gray background because I liked keeping this one, but I did incorporate a little turquoise (after I used it to mix her eye color) to drop it back a bit and give it a more delicate sunrise feel.

I also didn't paint in all of her many wrinkles, but rather tried to convey their presence by both the face shapes and the directionality of some of the paintbrush strokes. I could have done more detail, but I think the idea of age is sufficiently conveyed here by the depth of the eyelids, the gently sagging cheeks and jaws, and some of the facial creases.

I wish I had thought ahead to give a better impression of the hat and coat as fur, but I was primarily focused on them as a frame for her face, so they are fairly matte.

"Pink Lady"—pencil, acrylics, and a little Stabilo All, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

And I have another background made from her leftovers for another day.