L'Hermitage Collage

Realized that I haven't posted a work in progress since I did the January Challenge, so thought this experiment with a limited palette might be one to do.  My hubby has been wanting a vintage poster that he could put in his space for quite some time, so thought now might be the time.  Had cut this out of a magazine quite some time ago and loved the color of her hair, as that really is the dominant color and focus of the poster.  This was originally done in 1897 bt the Frenchman Paul Berthon.  Thought it looked relatively easy - well, wrong - the @#$@ thing took me 2 days to get drawn down on the paper as the graphic look is a mix of curves and angles.  Also reference was quite a bit smaller than actual drawing so took me some time to get the proportions and placements right.  Guess I am glad I missed some things by not going to art school!!

Also wanted to show the low tack artist tape that I used as a mask to try to get the straight border lines as I knew there was no way I was going to get straight lines with just a brush.  Worked just great, wide enough to spill outside the edge and only NOTE is to be sure that you have the edge sealed well to prevent any bleeds beneath the tape - you can see one slight bleed on the bottom left corner.  I think too, that for those of us that are quite economical, you can reuse them but again, just be really sure you got a good sealed edge to prevent the bleeds.

Challenge here is:
1)  using the limited palette of 6 colors and mixing the colors I need
2)  using a new support, 140lb water color paper - has big valleys
3)  using more paint, using the acrylic but not getting all hard edges
4)  working in a large size for me, 18"x24"
5)  also testing out using a side sheet for notes, color tests and trials of things before I go to the picture, this would be something I could file afterwards and be able to refer back to when I tried to remember how I did something, or what I mixed to get something.  I know, smacks of downright of planning and ORGANIZATION doesn't it.  We'll see how it goes as this hasn't been a strong suit of mine, but one I have wished several times I knew what I did.

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