Week 18, redux

Today I decided to try that assignment again by Lara Provost on LFI2021, mostly because I loved the colors she used for her background and wanted to do a painting with those instead of the brighter, more earthy ones I used on my reading girl. Again, however, I am working in watercolors instead of acrylics, and it's hard to get those defined random strokes of color like she did, unless you do an undercoat, let it dry, and then go over the top with other layers, and I wanted a more spontaneous result. So I threw in some of the same colors, and then primed them with water to run in various directions and give me a more watery and less defined look while still including the germane tints.

My model is my Facebook friend and portrait-painter extraordinaire Sassa Wilkes, who recently cut her hair and obligingly provided a selfie to steal. With her light eyes and russet hair, I thought she'd be the perfect subject to go over this backdrop.

She has such delicate redhead skin tones that I didn't want to do my usual double outline of black pen, I wanted to leave it soft to go both with her and with the watery, delicate background. So I used a brown Pitt Artist Pen sparingly, just to define edges and work on her eyelids and lashes, and the only place where I used black was for her pupils.

I don't use white watercolor, so for the highlights I laid down some white Daler Rowney ink in the spots I needed it, and let that dry before I did the rest of the picture. It worked pretty well!

"Sassa, Shorn"—Daler Rowney inks (background), pencil, Paul Jackson watercolors (foreground), Pitt pen, Uniball pens in black and silver, white Signo gel pen, on Fluid coldpress 140-lb. watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Mad

Well, I couldn't do one and not do the other!

Next JENeration Art posted a Wednesday challenge to do a piece of art using red and pink watercolor, a fine-liner, and a water brush, and when I think of red right now my mind only goes one place. I know my girl will be a shock to the other "players" with their sweet little things with pointy ears and wings, covered in flowers and butterflies, but I'm posting her!

Her word, of course, is a double entendre. I didn't quite capture the manic quality of her smile, and I can't get her to look right at the viewer no matter where I put the damn highlights, but...it's not bad. I had fun with the background.

"June"—pencil, Daler Rowney inks, Paul Jackson watercolors, Uniball, Signo gel pen, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress paper, approx. 9x12 inches.

Week 19

This week's LFI2021 was a "mini" lesson, which is to say quick and minimal input from the teacher, not a big project. It turned out to be just a pencil drawing with some shading. Some people did a beautiful job, but I am not a pencil person and dislike the tedium of shading and cross-hatching, so I thought I'd pass.

Then I saw the photo of the instructor, Danielle Mack, and she was so adorable and personable-looking that I couldn't resist painting her.  Since she has dreads, I wonkifyed her a little per Deb Weiers style, including adding a word (she seemed really "present" and alive). I hope she doesn't mind being turquoise.

"Danielle"—pencil, Daler Rowney inks, Unibal pen, Signo gel pen, collage, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress paper, approx. 7x8.25 inches.

Week 18

I completely forgot last week to do the LFI2021 lesson for the week, so this morning I took a look. I liked the lesson, but...I'm getting bored with painting pictures of pretty women with no point to them. So I did something a little different.

This week's teacher, Lara Provost, made her abstract background with acrylics (left, below) and then painted over the top of them in oil, mostly obscuring the background with her subject (right, below).  I really liked the background, but it was almost completely covered by the end, and I felt like what's the point?

I decided to try something similar, but using watercolors and leaving more of the base colors showing through the subject. I also chose a reference photo with a reading girl, because I need to keep adding to my repertoire of reading people.

Here's my initial background:

In my chosen photo, the subject was holding her book with a couple of fingers right down at the bottom of the spine, but it was a small photo and, when I blew it up, didn't give me much to work with, so I simply dropped the bottom part of the book below the bottom of the photo so I could leave them out. It also had the other arm with the elbow elevated and her head resting against the forearm behind it, but when I drew it (sticking exactly to the photo), it looked weird and deformed, so I took it out again!

I was going to paint out the wall behind her, but I liked the interesting edges too much, so I just dropped the top part back a shade by covering it with a layer of white ink.

This one was a bit messy because I painted the background in watercolors, and when I started using the gesso and inks over the top of them, the watercolors lifted back up. So there's a little bit more mingling than I had planned.

I kinda regret painting in the flower pattern on the sofa; or at least this flower pattern. I should have done something more natural-looking with blossoms and leaves instead of this retro Mod-ish fabric. But, can't go back and fix that, so there it is.

I was going to letter in the title of the book she was reading, but decided that if it was a book someone didn't like, they might take against the art as a whole, while simply having sun and moon shapes on the cover gives a feeling of fantasy or whimsy without being specific as to the contents. (It was The Alchemist, by Paolo Coehlo.)

I had to scan this in two pieces and patch it together, since it's 12x12 and my scanner is 9x12. Someday, a bigger scanner!

"Reading Alchemy"—Paul Jackson watercolors, pencil, Uniball pen, gesso, Daler Rowney inks, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 12x12 inches.