At 2:30 this morning, when it was obvious I wasn't going to sleep, I decided to get up and paint. I had just finished the young adult book Akata Witch, by Nnedi Okorafor, and had an idea to paint a portrait featuring its protagonist, Sunny.
Sunny is a black girl who is albino, and I loved the challenge of achieving that look, with the pale, delicate layers of skin tones. There was a lot going on in the book, and I decided to paint some stuff in the background as "symbolism"—some chili peppers, some morning glories, and Sunny's juju knife with a green blade. Unfortunately, neither the layout nor the rendering of the objects was pleasing, and I ended up three hours later with a figure I loved and a background I hated.
I decided to cover the background with a layer of pale gray gesso, and the portrait looked so much better without the distraction of all the dark, obtrusive junk in the background, but then it felt a little plain. So I pulled colors from her face and hair to do a stencil pattern in acrylics over the gesso, then painted a thin layer of white paint over the top of those, once they were dry, to knock them back a little so that they were an interesting feature but didn't take away from the face. I think it works...? This all took another hour or two, with the result that no sleep was achieved! Maybe a nap is in order, after breakfast.
Here is "Akata Witch"—pencil, watercolors, gesso, acrylic paint, on 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper. It's about 13 inches wide and about 11.5 inches tall.
