First off want to thank Patrick Hedges for this wonderful reference picture - he got the most amazing lighting. Well this elegant and stylish Zambian lady has demanded she get painted, and has just talked to me and literally popped out of the paper almost fully rendered in just a couple of hours. Took a 3 mile run and a small cleaning break and then had to have another go at completing the right side of her face. Before I stop for the day, porch and wine time, I had to put in all the flesh tones roughly on her neck as I fear I wouldn't be able to duplicate them going forward after a couple of hours, so now only need to go in and accent the hollows. Yes, I cheated and already put in the dot detail, but that is one of the compelling accents to her and one of the reasons I had to paint her. I am surprised because as you know I am a pretty slow painter and on this painting I was really cranked up to paint, paint in pastel and am trying hard not to overwork, but just put in the colors and keep on moving. Will try to remember that as I finish up the details of her hat and just hint at her bead necklace. She has the most elegant collar bones and that will be the second focal point. All in all I have to say thus far I am pretty pleased with this result and it makes me fall in love all over again with pastel.
Her Highness mixed media woman portrait
Her Highness I just absolutely loved the expression on this lady and knew I wanted to try to capture her elegance and serenity. I knew that I didn't want an exact portrait and decided to try another mixed media piece. I added blobs of paint and used my large scraper to make the areas of color. Just put paint on a piece of watercolor paper. Then I inscribed and mixed the colors together with the end of my brush and got all the wavy lines (in real life they actually stand up so there is a 3D effect to the background). Where I thought I wanted the face I really scraped most of the paint off, and ended up with color blotches and tones, and if you look in the forehead you can sort of see the design that was left. I thought it would add some variance to the skin tones. I also want to keep her very soft so I tried to stay in the pastel tones, even with the lips. Once I got shadows and lights added in, and went over it with some skin tone and more blue colors I let
Comments
Rita.
Happy painting
Caroline