Just because

This one isn't for any lesson, I just painted it because I kept coming back to the photograph wanting to paint it! I was going to turn it into something uniquely mine by making her a Raggedy Ann doll with a blue-and-white checked dress and white collar (which would actually be consistent with Jenell's love of costume and dress-up), but when it came down to it I wasn't feeling that, so instead I went with dark and unobtrusive for the shirt (in the reference photo she was wearing a cream-colored sweater) so that her face would really stand out amongst all the red and burgundy and purple.

This whole thing came together deceptively easily—I spent a couple of hours on Thursday and again on Friday, and thought I had finished it last night—but when I got up this morning and looked at it, I saw that I had somehow managed to skew the mouth so it was too straight, too far to the right, and not lined up properly with the other features, and the nose was slightly off its proper angle as well. I showed it to my friend Corinne and she gave it a pass, but I knew it would bug me if I left it, so I fixed the nose (that was a tiny correction) and then painted over the mouth, let that dry, and started in to replace it.

Four mouths later...I kid you not. For some reason, getting the correct angle and the proper formation of the lips and the proportion of left to right required by the tilt of the head was simply impossible for my brain to comprehend. I finally ended up with something that worked okay for me—better than it had been before in terms of fitting with the rest of the face—but it's still not as similar to the original as I was hoping.

It is, however, a fairly good likeness of Jenell over all, and I'm happy with the simple yet crazy red hair and the way the rest of it fades back, so I'm calling it done!

"Raggedy Jenell"—chalk and acrylics on thin birch board, 12x12 inches.