Pouty

Some days you just can't leave it alone. I had a specific idea for the curler girl, earlier, and didn't quite pull it off, which left me feeling dissatisfied, so I decided to try something different tonight. I found a series of photos like people take in the photo booth at the county fair, mugging for the camera and trying out different expressions. This girl did six of them, and this is #1, which I'm calling "pouty."

The pictures are in black and white, which leaves color choices open, and for some reason green seemed the right color for her expression.

"Pouty"—pencil, Daler Rowney inks, watercolors, Uniball pen, gel pen, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, approx. 6x9 inches.

This one's for Cos

Sometimes when I feel like doing a wonky painting but am lacking inspiration, I'll google random stuff and see who shows up. This morning I had the seed of an idea but not a specific face to put with it, so I googled "women with goofy expressions" and found a lot of good material for future faces. One of them, however, rang a bell and it fit perfectly with my "seed," so I went for it.

After doing the stencil hair on my previous painting and having it turn out so interestingly, I wanted to try another stencil idea for hair. But when I started laying it down, it looked more like hair in rollers than just hair. So I found a lady with a quizzical expression and rollers in her hair, which reminded me of the last time I had a facetime breakfast with Kirsten, and her mom popped in to say hello, with her hair up in curlers and wearing makeup. I asked Kirsten after if Carol Sue was going out somewhere that day, and Kirst said No, I don't think so, she just likes to keep up her appearance.

So this one's for you, Cos, for going that extra mile those of us who have lived in pajamas for 13 months have long abandoned!

"Curlers"—pencil, Daler Rowney inks, white gesso, Uniball pen, Signo gel pen, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Everything in the proper order

There are so many things you need to keep in mind when creating a piece of art, and just one impulsive move can really put a crimp in your plans. I decided it would be cool to do this beautiful girl's hair by using a stencil. I put in the stencil part with black gesso, and then went over it with Burnt Umber ink. I should have stopped at that point, worked on the face, and then finished the hair after, but I jumped in without thinking and cleaned up the edges and put in some blown strands with my India ink. The hair looked good (although I "trimmed" the width of her face and neck a bit much); I let it dry thoroughly and then moved on to the face.

The first step was to put some shadows under the top edge/bangs of the hair, and what do you know? I somehow forgot, despite knowing perfectly well if I had stopped to think, that India ink will move again if you get it wet! Suddenly there was a gray tinge to all my nice pure ink colors as the India ink bled into them. I had to stop, mop a little, let everything dry again, and try putting the highlights back in by using white ink on the tan-toned background. It would have been okay if I had been using sturdy watercolor paper, but this stuff has a flat finish (no texture), and multiple coats of ink started picking up bits of the paper along with the ink as I tried to blend and shade.

I had to let it dry again, then brush off the paper bits and live with the highlights I had already achieved, so then I needed to go a little darker with everything else. Bottom line: It was a good idea, but I turned it into kind of a hot mess with one unthinking, impatient moment.

I do, however, like the effect (stencil hair) and will try it again sometime.

"Freckles"—Pencil, black gesso, stencil, India ink, Uniball pen, Daler Rowney inks, on Strathmore Toned Tan Mixed Media paper, 9x12 inches.

Illustrating my reading

Today's offering is a little drawing I came up with, based on a scene in The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune, a delightful fantasy novel that I am about a third of the way through reading. The only illustration that comes with the book is its cover, but the descriptions are so colorful, immediate, and delightful that I decided to make one to go with my eventual book review (day after tomorrow?).

There are, in this book, orphanages full of magical children, some (like Sal) who look like any other kid until they exhibit their unexpected skills (Sal's is to shape-shift to a small Pomeranian dog), and others of completely unknown origin, like Chauncey. No one knows where he came from or who (or what) his parentage could have been, but he is described as...

"an amorphous green blob with bright red lips. And black teeth. And eyes on stalks that stuck up high above his head, seemingly moving independently of each other. He didn't have arms so much as tentacles with tiny little suckers along their lengths. He was not quite see-through, although Linus could make out the faint outline of Sal hiding behind him."

Chauncey is a bouncy, light-hearted, charming little fellow, with innocent aspirations to move to the big city and be a bell-hop. The background of this illustration: The orphanage inspector, Linus Baker, has just arrived from the mainland at the remote island a ferry ride away from the village of Marsyas, and is meeting its motley crew of inhabitants. He has already managed to frighten Sal, who has shifted into doggie form and run away from him, and has just turned around at the sound of a voice offering to take his coat, only to encounter Chauncey, who is happily dealing with his luggage, and Sal, peering out from behind him in consternation.

"Chauncey and Sal"—pencil underdrawing, Uniball, Daler Rowney inks, on Fluid paper, 5.5x8 inches.

If only I could write such a delightful tale to inspire my own illustrations. Maybe someday....

Beauty

I often wonder, when I come across a reference photo of a truly beautiful woman, whether my subsequent painting of her is beautiful in and of itself, or if I owe everything to my subject, who would shine through regardless of how I chose to portray her.

This was a photo provided for the Friday exercise on Next JENeration Art, Jenny Manno's Facebook page, but I decided to paint her in the manner of LFI2021's Angela Kennedy, in her lesson from last Monday (look a few posts down and you can see the details of that one), in Payne's Grey with only select coloration and some linework to accentuate certain elements. I also wanted to try at least a partial background using stencils for interest.

I had planned to leave the stencil work in its original color, a pale peach, and the rest of the background white, but the stenciling looked a bit messy (I should have taped it down and used a proper stencil brush instead of rushing it), and the white behind the mostly monochromatic portrait didn't highlight it, so I went over the entire background with the Payne's Grey after I was all finished with the figure, and I like how it dropped back both the stencil and the solid background, without totally obliterating the pattern and color of the stencil.

I wasn't quite as successful as last time at keeping all my Payne's Grey blending smooth and soft—the ink dries so fast that it's fatal to let your attention wander to another area even for a few seconds, or to try to paint too large an area at once, so there are some hard edges here and there that I would have preferred to be soft (like her left cheek), but over all I was happy with the capture. Her hair also didn't blend quite as nicely as I would have liked (again, too slow to drop in the other colors), but I kind of like it looking more multicolored and strand-y.

This model was copiously covered in freckles, and I also originally planned to add those at the end, but I couldn't bear to risk ruining it by an injudicious flick of ink, so I turned chicken and left them off. I think she still translates as a pale Irish redhead, though.

She didn't come with a name, so I'm calling her Fionnuala (fin-oola), which in Gaelic means "white shoulder."

"Fionnuala"—stencil, acrylic paint, gesso, pencil, Daler Rowney inks, Uniball pen, Signo gel pen, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.