Inspiration combo

I looked at a few things today and combined them to make this piece. A few weeks ago, Angela Kennedy did a lesson for LFI2024 with a redheaded model and a background filled with painted leaves. And on July 1st, Dana Primrose Bloede posted a reference photo that was her challenge for a July portrait. Since there's only one more day left, I thought I'd better get on that! 

I had initially planned to paint this in acrylics on a board, but I didn't feel like getting into all that today and decided instead to do a version of what I had thought of for that project in watercolor.

Rather than painting Angela's leaves, I used a stencil to give a feeling of seaweed in the background, and instead of doing a straight portrait of the model with chiseled cheekbones and pouty lips that Dana supplied, I decided to turn her into a mermaid.

After I made the drawing in Uniball pen, I painted a watery background, and then gave an undercoat of green to my mermaid. After that all dried, I added the stenciling and then painted over the green in various skin and shadow tones to model the planes and shadows of her face, hand, and shoulders. Like Angela's lesson, I decided to do her hair as a block of blended color rather than trying to make it look realistic by separating it into strands, and I think that suits the style of the rest of the painting.

The green skin gave me a throwback memory to an Orion, one of the alien characters on the original Star Trek. But once I got the overtones on and put the seaweed in the background, I feel like the whole mermaid thing came together.

This is Uniball pen and Paul Jackson watercolors on Fabriano 140-lb. paper, 9x12, and I'm calling her "Marina."

Angles

 Our Let's Face It 2024 assignment for last week was painting someone from a difficult angle. The teacher used a different reference photo, and painted something very colorful in oils; I chose to steal a reference photo from another student who, like me, wanted to do her own thing, and paint it in watercolor in an almost monochromatic way, using only yellows and browns with a bit of pink and purple thrown in as accent. I actually washed the entire page first with Naples Yellow, blotting off a few highlights and the whites of the eyes, so it would have a unifying color.

This was a tough one to paint, and I overworked the chin and under-chin area to the point where my paper (some Fabriano I am trying out) started to fray! I captured a fair likeness otherwise, but that chin-to-neck transition still bothers me.

This is 9x12 inches, using my Paul Jackson watercolors on Fabriano 140-lb. 25% cotton paper. I called it "Up Your Nose."

A redhead and her best friend

When I saw the photo, I couldn't resist trying to paint this little redhead and her cat buddy. And although I don't think I quite did them justice, I'm glad I tried it, for the variety of challenges it presented. I'm pretty happy with the faces, less happy with the cat body, which admittedly disintegrated into an amorphous blob in the reference photo, not giving me much help. But the warm colors of the child contrasted with the cooler colors of the cat were fun to do, and I hope the subject of the photo doesn't mind my borrowing it.

This is pencil and watercolor on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress paper,

12x12 inches, and it's called "JSBnKitteh."

Venting

I have been so beside myself with rage and frustration for the past 48 hours since the "Supreme Six" made a travesty of the branches of government by handing over the very extraordinary powers to the office of the President that the founding fathers worked so hard to exclude from that person that I needed to find some way to work out the anger. The worst of it is that we all know that immunity is only given to cover the lawless and depraved acts of their sociopath of a candidate and that any attempt to use this so-called autonomy by the Democratic holder of the office would be a booby trap of epic proportions, even if that person could imagine using that immunity for self-interest or the partisan interests of his party, which he would not. It is truly unbelievable what they have been able to "accomplish" in the name of fascism and domination over a nation that does not espouse their views and does not want them as our rulers or arbitrators, simply by relying on our moral compass.

At first I thought to do a portrait of the three justices who stood strong, united in horrified dissent, and I may still do that at some point, but what I really wanted was to wreak my revenge on the six who betrayed us. And while working on it gave me some degree of satisfaction and relief, it is such a deadly serious subject that I couldn't do what I really wanted, which was to caricature them in a Deb Weiers-like portrait, as I have previously done with others from that side of the aisle. They look all too attractive and lifelike to satisfy my frustration. But I did manage to surround them with words of condemnation, revelation, and disgust, so there's that.

Here are the Supreme Six, or the Six of January Six, since their objective was to follow through on the intent of that day.

(Can I just say that I am particularly, overwhelmingly disgusted that a woman would choose to stand with these corrupt assholes against the interests of her gender? That I find the hardest to understand or digest.)

Uniball, acrylic ink, and watercolor, 16x12 inches on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress.

My intention was to parody them as I did the former architects of our destruction—McConnell, Cruz, and Graham—or a couple of hate-filled MAGA fanatics that I captured as they "protested" the good acts of the Democratic Party and let their own priorities be known.

Marking time

 I haven't felt too inspired lately, so I've been marking time by picking up on the projects of others and redoing them to suit myself. They haven't completely done that, but at least they have kept my hand in. This girl was a portrait that someone published on a Facebook page, asking for help with the likeness (a person new to portraits) and I decided that she was sufficiently arresting that I wanted to paint her myself.

The second is a challenge being put out there by Dana Primrose Bloede—she's posting one copyright-free image a month and asking people to paint the portrait and share. None of them have names on them, so I called him "This Guy." I enjoyed the darks and lights on this one, but I'm not a big fan of painting men's facial hair!

They are both 9x12 inches, painted on 90-lb. paper I bought for watercolor workshops, so not quite as clean as they would have been on Fluid.

Departure

I was reminded this week that I used to do drawings/paintings of all kinds of things, from recipe ingredients to flowers to street scenes, in my sketchbook, but that since I took up portraits, that's all I have painted for a few years now. And, well, although they are still my first love, it is possible to get a little stale no matter what your subject matter. So when I saw a photo of Lynn's hollyhocks on Facebook this week and remembered having painted them once before, I decided to do a new painting of that subject, with nary a face to be seen.

This is pencil and watercolor on 90-lb. Strathmore watercolor paper, 9x12 (including a 1/2-inch border all around). It's good to keep your skills up with other subject matter occasionally!

Here are my other hollyhock paintings—one done in France in 2013, the other done from a photo in 2019 as part of the 30x challenge.

Canine Cutie

Today's watercolor and Uniball sketch is Marlie J. Dogg, the bookstore manager and all-around potentate in the household of L.S. Quinn, Executive Director of The Reading Room CLE in Cleveland Ohio, aka Galinda Upland (don't ask me!).

Marlie has ruled that roost for several years now as the worthy successor of Cha-Cha the Beloved, and I have signally failed thus far in my duty to memorialize her in art. So today, here she is in all her heavily ironic glory, giving us a slightly jaundiced grin and a wink from the comfort of her car bed (which I took the liberty of rendering in color instead of sticking to its rather dull charcoal). I know she is a highly discerning critic, but humbly hope she will be at least satisfied, if not flattered by, this fond portrait.

Drawn in Uniball pen and embellished with Paul Jackson signature watercolors on 90-lb. Strathmore watercolor paper, @ 9x12 inches. All Hail Mighty Marlie.