I decided I would do my own variation on this week's LFI lesson with Angela Kennedy (Angela's finished exercise, pictured, right). The first step was to make the base drawing; my reference photo person's head is at a somewhat difficult angle, so, after I drew it, I took a photo of the drawing, brought it into Photoshop Elements, and superimposed it at 70 percent opacity over the original photo, checking my accuracy (which wasn't bad, considering) and adjusting my drawing to match the photo more closely.
The next step was to put acrylic ink on the paper and then wash it down with water so that it would make a thin film of color over the entire image and background. Angela did a mix of burnt umber and black, but I wanted mine to be a slightly warmer sepia tone, so I went with the straight burnt umber. I don't know what happened; perhaps the ink had congealed a bit since I bought it a couple of years ago, because it was a little thick, and the color was pretty intense. I washed it, but had to use a lot of water to get it to the proper tone, and something happened that never has before—my Fluid paper didn't stand up to the wash!
The surface of the paper started to lift in little dots all over—it sort of pilled up like fabric that has been over-used—and also covered unevenly. So I'm sitting here waiting for the page to dry and shrink back to its original dimensions, and wondering if I'm going to have to start from scratch, i.e., do the drawing over again. And I find myself justifying why I should go ahead and use what I have instead of starting over!
"The speckles will give it an interesting texture."
"It will look better once it's dried."
"It's only an exercise, it doesn't have to be perfect."
It would make the most sense to start again, redoing the drawing and then using less ink and therefore less water, or maybe switching to paint instead of the obviously compromised ink for this undercoat; but I'm feeling doubtful that I can get the drawing right again. You would think that redoing one I had already done would mean that I would do a better job the second time, but I have a superstition that I'll never manage the same result twice, and also a reluctance to start over when I just want to move on with the rest of the process!
I'm going to let it dry and see what's what. So we may or may not see finished art today!
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