I've decided to do a watercolour based on the graphite portrait of Liz that I've been showing here. This is a new challenge for me; I've never tried painting a portrait before, so it's a bit scary. In fact, I didn't even have much idea how to mix a good skin tone; in the end I found the yellow ochre a alizarin crimson are commonly used, so that's what I've tried, with the addition of cobalt blue for shadows. This is just a first wash, there's a lot more to do.
I think I might declare this finished. At any rate, I'm going to to leave it for a few days and then come back to it. It didn't turn out too badly in the end, though I don't think I'll be using this type of paper for drawing on again. I had to resort to using my .3mm mechanical pencil to get into the small crevices in the paper!
Here's another update. At one point today I almost gave up and started again on different paper as I'm having so much trouble with this. It would be great for something that had lots of texture, but I don't really want my wife's skin to have lots of texture! In the end I thought I'd keep going; it will be good practice for another version, if nothing else. I've started work on the hair as well as changing the right eye yet again and doing a bit more work on the mouth.
I've not had much drawing time this week, so I haven't made much progress on this drawing, but I thought I'd post what I've done so far. I've corrected the eyes, though I notice that in the process the irises are now not round. But that's easily fixed. The mouth needs more work, but as I said, that's the hardest part! And the hair...I might not have mentioned that Liz has curly hair...
I'm starting a drawing of Liz, my wife. It's based on a photograph that I took when we were on holiday in Switzerland last month. I've not done much work on it yet, but thought I would show the progress so far. I'm doing this on a 1/4 sheet of Arches HP paper. I'm not sure that's going to turn out to be a good choice; it's a bit rougher than I'm used to working on, so I hope I can make the skin look suitably smooth! Plus I still have the dreaded mouth to work on, generally the hardest part on the face, IMHO. Luckily, she's got her mouth shut, so at least I don't have to worry about the teeth. So far it's all done with a 2B .5mm mechanical pencil.
