Testing new limits

I really wanted to do a good job on this one, but it fell short of my expectations and exceeded my abilities. The tricky part was the angle of the head, capturing the jaws and chin properly so that the head looked properly tilted back, and I didn't quite achieve it. Too round on the left, too narrow on the right, a little too much forehead, and more hair showing at the top than there would be. Also, I think the nose and mouth angles are too extreme to go with the eyes, which are supposed to be looking up from under but don't...quite.

Of course, one could ask, how many portraits are you ever going to do with the person's head at this angle? This is a phenomenon of the phone selfie. It's good practice, but probably not something that will happen often. Still, it would be nice to be accomplished at capturing all angles!

I did enjoy working on the toned paper, which gives a whole different look to every color you apply; I'll do that again, even though it does then require a lot of work to bring out the highlights by using white. The demonstrating artist used white charcoal, but I didn't have any, so I used my new white ink to fairly good effect. I may have gone a little overboard there, too...

"Rhayane"—colored pencil, watercolors, white ink, on Strathmore 184-lb. Toned Tan Mixed Media paper, 9x11.5 inches.

More new toys

There's nothing more exciting (to me, anyway) than the arrival of a box from Dick Blick. I go online and order stuff, and then I more or less forget the specifics of what I ordered (plus they never manage to deliver the order all at the same time, something is inevitably back-ordered), so when the box lands on the porch I get to find out what will tempt me to play today.

I also ordered more stencils from Wish, because I love the effect of the gesso'd patterns laid underneath the transparent ink to provide texture and interest, and they came the same day.

Previous to this, I only used the stencils as an accent, mostly around/outside the face, but these new ones are more repetitive pattern choices, so today I covered an entire page, let it dry, and started painting over the top. The new stuff from Blick was two more colors of Daler Rowney inks—Payne's Grey, which I love as an alternative to both black and blue, and White, which I wasn't sure would work but which comes across more or less the same as watered-down gesso without the mess and trouble, so I'm thrilled. (I also got a few flat brushes to use when painting with gouache.)

This was actually intended to be a nameless weird-looking character, so I picked somebody kind of funny looking to use as a reference (because I'm not so good at drawing without something to look at), but I'm afraid he turned out more recognizable than I thought he would despite my attempt at caricature, particularly when I decided to add his daily garb to the picture. His face is a little longer/thinner than in life, but otherwise a pretty good likeness. I'll have to try again for a nameless goofy guy. See if you can guess.... I'm torn about painting him, because I'm not a fan, but maybe someone who is will buy the painting!

Gesso, stencil, pencil, Uniball pen, Daler Rowney inks, white Signo gel pen, Elegant Writer, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress paper, 9x12 inches.

Back to basics

Because of the several classes and challenges I have been taking/doing, a lot of the recent portraiture has been pretty "straight," that is, recognizable likenesses, blended paint, not much in the way of offbeat personality. This morning I had a yen for something different, so I went back and reviewed one of Deb Weiers's classes from last year, and reminded myself of the steps to wonkiness.

I scribbled a bunch of pencil marks (because as Deb says, nobody likes a white piece of paper!), dumped on some water and three colors of acrylic inks, and let them spread and bleed and dry. I did a somewhat blind contour of this gal in ballpoint pen, then went back and corrected some things like the shape of her head. Next was the outline of face and features with a black pen, and I made a border too, though I later decided not to fill it in because I didn't want to cover up all those cool colors and drips. Some gesso highlights, some shading with various colors, a little collage, some touches of white, random spatter, and here's a portrait with which I am really pleased! I think I need to head off into more random content again for a while.

"Speak up"—pencil, ball point pen, Daler Rowney inks, gesso, watercolor, Uniball pen, Signo gel pens, collage, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Fun with friends

No, people, none of you is safe...if you post interesting photos on Facebook, you're in danger of having them appropriated and turned into a painting! Especially on days when I am not enamored of the Sktchy offering and searching for diversion.

This, almost unbelievably given the woman I know, is Cynthia Smith in her apparently misspent youth! The Cynthia I know has a sock drawer in which not only are the socks paired together but also arranged in an appropriate color array and laid out perfectly in both parallel and perpendicular fashion. (I know this because she once wrote an essay about it in the writing class we took together.) The Cynthia I know wears delicate jewelry and beautiful linen shirts, and has a no-nonsense haircut and an award-winning poodle with whom she rehearses for dog shows on the weekends.

How amazed was I, therefore, to see this Springsteen's-girlfriend-in-leather-jacket, with wild hair, heavy eye shadow, and thumbs hooked defiantly through the belt loops of her scruffy jeans, only to realize it was my sedate friend? I mean, wow, Cyn, cleavage!

Cynthia, please forgive me, I couldn't resist.

"Misspent Youth"—pencil, watercolor, Pitt artist pen, Uniball, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Trying new tools

Nothing like spending a couple-three hours on a painting only to mess it up good with the last step because you're using a tool you haven't tried before. You've seen others use it successfully and to beautiful effect, but somehow, for you, it won't cooperate.

I got bored with my Sktchy portraits, where the choices are watercolor vs. gouache and every picture is fairly traditional. So this is either an homage or an unsuccessful copy of the work of my friend Phoebe Chatham, depending on how you want to look at it. She somehow picks up a new tool, plays with it for five minutes, and makes it her own. She also combines media—carbothello pencils, watercolor, ink, Stabilos, Elegant Writers—in weird and previously unknown ways to stupendous effect.

On this particular gal, I put a bunch of inky flower-like daubs at the bottom of the page from which she was supposed to emerge, and then did a lot of pretty subtle watercolor work to achieve her fragile but challenging look. I could have left it there, but....boredom.

I went around the whole image with a Stabilo All pencil and activated it with water, hoping to have a beautiful dark intense heavy line around her the way Phoebe does. Instead, you could see the "crayon" marks of the pencil showing through on the coldpress watercolor paper (first mistake, should have used smooth paper), and it didn't so much activate as bleed out in a cloud of unattractive brown.

So, I let it dry and then stole another method from Phoebe to try to fix it, which was to outline again (over the top of the Stabilo) with an Elegant Writer, and then activate that with water, which makes it bleed out into the background and, if you throw salt on it, make little pink flowers amidst the turquoise and gray. Second mistake, shouldn't have outlined the face inside the ears. But I was covering the Stabilo, which I had already put there.... Third mistake, you're supposed to use rock salt, but all I had was table salt, so I threw some of that on, to much lesser effect. Then I spilled the rest of it all over my art table (don't worry, some of it went right quick over my left shoulder with my right hand), so that pretty much finished today's experiment.

Also, she was supposed to look like she was emerging from flowers, but because I outlined (double) over her collar bones, it instead looks like she's wearing a kinda cheesy flowered blouse.

Well, if you don't succeed...you know the rest of the saying: Give up and buy art from Phoebe! Ha!

"Bald Girl"—Daler Rowney inks, pencil, watercolors, Uniballs (black and silver), Stabilo All (obscured) and Elegant Writer, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

And again...

Kate, here, is yesterday's girl, and was also supposed to be gouache, like Olivia. I have a feeling I'm going to be saying that a lot, because I just don't want to go there. It took me years to get down the finicky shading of watercolor, and I don't want to have to do it all over again with gouache. I did, however, look at certain elements of the example by Charlotte Hamilton, which translated mainly to suggesting, rather than defining, all the lines in the hair, so that it has chunky highlights and shadows. It actually looks more like ombré! But that's just fine.

Charlotte painstakingly painted rose wallpaper behind her Kate, but I didn't have either the patience or the skill, so I did a base layer of pale yellow to be my lightest light, then used my stencil-and-gesso trick around the figure, covered with layers of yellow, lime green, turquoise, and pink acrylic inks to make it pop around her head.

"Kate"—pencil, gesso, stencils, Daler Rowney inks, Paul Jackson watercolors, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress paper, 9x12 inches.

I love watercolor

This girl, Olivia, was supposed to be a gouache painting, but after already doing one today and struggling with it, I decided I would instead try to mimic (more or less) what the artist did in gouache using watercolor.

The biggest obstacle to that, of course, is the purist watercolorist's refusal to use white paint, trying instead to preserve the white of the paper as the lightest light. I have never been the greatest at this, but I wanted to do this picture in watercolor, so I gave it a shot.

I'm fairly pleased with her, although there were a few problems: She was oriented on the page on a slant, but my slant turned out too extreme and now I don't know whether to display the painting vertically, as it's supposed to be, or to turn it to the horizontal. It doesn't really work either way.

I failed to preserve some significant white areas, which would have improved the contrast between the light and shadow sides of the face. The biggest issue is the transparency of watercolor that didn't let me do what Cecile Yadro did with her opaque gouache, which was to blend and mix the hair into the background, letting the blue intrude into the hair randomly, instead of having a defined head area surrounded by blue. I have to admit that it was an effective technique, and maybe I could have pulled it off in watercolor—but I didn't pay enough attention while painting the hair, and ended up with a much more conventional look.

And, as usual, her nose is just a smidge too long, and her eyes a tiny bit too small. Oh well...

I do like the delicate blending I achieved in the face, and that I was able to give sufficient accent to her features without using pen and ink.

"Olivia"—pencil and Paul Jackson watercolors on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress paper, 9x10.5 inches.