This one is taking some time. Not sure if it’s my mind being fuzzy, or the subtle colors in this one are more complicated. In any case, I am making progress. I worked a lot on the face today, yet it still needs some finessing. The torso and arms are close to complete, as are the legs. Next step is to get the hands and feet completed, and finish up any other little details overall…
work progress – details slowly coming in
work progress – slow going
I’ve been out of sorts for the past few days, so my progress on this piece isn’t as much as I would like. I did manage to get all the skin areas blocked in with colored pencils and oil pastels…
I used the masking to cover each area I went along, since there are many light/dark divisions between body parts. I did the upper half of the body on a different day than the lower, and since the upper half was covered while working on the legs, I didn’t get the color tones to match up by the waist. As I work on details, I will get this corrected, as well as working the pastels closer to the chain and charms there.
work progress – paint and gesso completed
Today was very productive. With a simple background and no wardrobe to paint, this step of the process was quick and easy.
I started the morning masking the image, then airbrushing the background with a very, very light gray-lavender acrylic. In designing this image in photoshop, this background helped bring out the highlights in the model, as well as giving the overall image a nice tone.
Next, I freehand airbrushed five colors for the rainbow – light red, yellow, light aqua, light blue, and light violet. To finish the background, I airbrushed a mix of green and purple iridescent acrylics overall…
The remainder of the day was spent painting. I started with the face, painting the eyes and mouth (I once again added skin tone around the areas to help blending later, but I found myself coloring in the entire face to help see the tones better). Next, the hair, building up layers of watery gouache browns from ochre-red down to dark brown and black. I then painted the waist chain and charms with gray gouache, adding bits of black for shading, and white for highlights. While the black was out, I also painted the shoes. Then I used green watercolor for the rabbit’s foot, accents on the shoes, and the emerald in the clover charm. Again, I painted some skin tone around all these areas for later blending (including almost all of the foot areas, as they’re fairly small and I might not get much oil pastels in there).
With time remaining tonight, I was able to get to the textured gesso for the skin…
new image designed and ready today
The last few days I’ve once again been looking through photos in search of new ideas/concepts. I have a few muddling around in my head, but not sure if they’re ready yet. While looking through images from Stacy’s shoot, I saw some with a cute expression and the phrase ‘charmed I’m sure’ came to me. So, with that now a focus, I was able to pin down once pose that I felt worked best. The photo set was nudes, so I considered adding an outfit or accessories, but nothing seemed really useful or necessary for the concept. Instead, I gave her a simple waist chain with some charms attached, and a rabbit’s foot on a bracelet. The background will have a very subtle (hopefully) rainbow flowing toward her…
New art completed – “Luscious”
I started on the details last night, and spent the whole day today completing them. Mostly done with colored pencils, I did bring out the turpenoid and oil pastels for a few fine details at the end. I also touched up some painted areas, deepening the color of the lips and darkening the black leather on the bra. I had considered earlier if I would do any more texturing to the fur, but it feels right to me as is.
It is now available here.
work progress – skin blocked in
It took some time to get all those large areas covered, especially with my finger tips getting sore, so I didn’t get it all done yesterday. Today I finished it off, covering the abdomen with the colored pencils and oil pastels. The skin is now covered, so next step is detailing, which I should get started still today. It should be finished some time tomorrow…
work progress – painting it up
Last night and today I spent working on all the paint areas. I started with the face, painting the eyes and lips with mostly gouache (and some watercolor on the lips). Next, I painted the hair, working layer after layer to build up the depth, darkness, and apparent detail (I don’t attempt to capture every hair, but rather try to give it a natural texture).
I then painted the black leather of the bra with watery layers of black and gray gouache. The highlights are mostly the paper showing through, so it’ll have a slightly different color tone than the skirt. The skirt was next, but once again I had trouble facing a large area with water. I just can’t get a smooth coat of color across without either the water evaporating, or the brush leaving streaks. Before getting overly frustrated, I masked it off and reverted to airbrush. Starting with black acrylic, I coated the area lightly, then built it up until the shadow areas were near solid. I then mixed some gray and turquoise in and hit the mid-toned areas. On the next pass, I kept adding more and more white to the mix, working up the highlights softly. I then decided to go for the ’sparkle’ finish, so I mixed steel and aqua iridescent acrylics and sprayed over the whole skirt, hitting the highlighted areas more than the shadows.
Once all that was dry, I used some acrylic black with a brush to define the creases in the material more. While I had it out, I mixed the black with a lot of water and washed the leopard spots on the bra (I played around with a few other patterns, but this still worked the best for me). Next, I mixed a turquoise-green gouache and washed it over the bra. I dry-brushed a bit on top of this with the same color to give it a hint of fur texture. I may use some colored pencils later to enhance that further. I finished out the leopard print with a wash of green within the spots.
The final bit I did today was adding white highlights to the skirt. If I have time still tonight, I hope to get the textured gesso down on the skin areas so I can begin blocking that in tomorrow…
work progress – new image begins
I had designed and drawn this new piece the other day (see yesterday’s blog). I masked and airbrushed the background yesterday, starting with a magenta mix (lightened and dulled using white and gray) for the middle of the piece. Then I filled out from there using a purple mix (with a touch of gray to dull, and ultramarine to deepen). I considered adding sparkles as I often do, but the color was so brilliant and fun, I didn’t think it needed anything more. The leather skirt has a sparkly sheen to it in the original photo, so maybe I’ll give it a touch of sparkles, we’ll see…
“Snack Break”
I added a last few touches to the face today, but doing any more would be a mistake, so I’ll call it done. I’m not perfectly happy with it (maybe some day I’ll return and do it again), but I think it works. It has a slight rough texture to it (in appearance, not actual touch) that’s a bit more painterly than I normally do, but some may appreciate that more.
It is now available here.
work progress – still struggling
Okay, the face is getting better, but it’s been so over-worked that it may never be all that it could be. That said, I may have managed to get somewhere near what I originally intended. We’ll see.
For now, here’s the face from this morning, after I blocked in the oil pastels with the improved eyes and mouth…
Meanwhile, to take my mind off the frustration and also give me a fresh perspective, I’ve found a new image to paint next. The pose interested me, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted from it. I played around with different hair styles, colors, and crops, but her hair and color always won out. It was a full body shot at first, but cropping it to the hips felt better (the legs, although nice, didn’t do anything for the pose nor the design). The bra has a leopard print on it, and I’ve changed it to an aqua-green color (from the original tan-orange), but I didn’t bother drawing the spots yet, as I may still change it to some other pattern (maybe)…
model – Gia
I was able to mask out the image and airbrush the background tonight, but didn’t get a photo of it yet. I’ll give the details for that tomorrow.
