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…
Tag acrylic
work progress – paint and gesso completed
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…
work progress – lots of airbrushing
I started today by masking out almost the entire board. Section by section, I removed a bit of the background and airbrushed the area using various mixes of gray-aqua acrylics. It was slow going, since I had to replace masking over areas I just painted, so there was a lot a waiting for everything to dry. For the section on the right side of the image, instead of using masking to block out the areas, I held cardboard against the surface. Hopefully this creates a softer edge, suggesting out-of-focus. Also, while painting those sections, I used the same color in the foreground floor for the wall’s reflection. I didn’t have the stand masked at the time, so you’ll see the bottom is somewhat covered. It’ll be dark gray, so I’m not concerned about that. I then used some gray colored pencils for the floor to give it a bit of texture.
A few more details remain, but then the background will be completed…
work progress – airbrushing the background
For this piece, I will keep the background simple, even though it is a room. I masked out everything except the chalkboard, then airbrushed it with a gray-green acrylic paint. Once dry, I removed some of the masking and added some details to the desk with pencils. I started with graphite for the shadows, rubbing them with my fingers to blend. Then I used a variety of ochre and brown colored pencils for the wood grain. Next, I masked around the desk, and airbrushed a light ochre acrylic over all of it.
With that dry, I removed all the masking, then drew the lettering on the board with a pink chalk pastel…
work progress – new background
As promised in last night’s blog, here’s the photo of the new color for the background…
Also, I’ve noticed I’ve been formatting the photos for this image as though the painting was 23×29″, but it’s actually 22×30″, so the earlier shots probably look a bit squatted. Oh well. As long as the final scan gets the proportions right, it won’t matter. 
work progress – background change
This morning, before I did too much detail work, I tried to clean up the paint bleed from yesterday’s frustrating airbrush work on the stockings. Go figure, the background paint was coming up more than the bleed paint, so a fix was not looking good. Trying to paint over it to cover would be difficult since the bleed color is darker than the background (even more so with some of it lifted now).
I took a step back and looked at the whole piece at this point. I wasn’t happy with the lack of contrast between the background and the skin now. Also, the white areas didn’t stand out much (especially the white feather duster). Outlining would help, but still wouldn’t give it much punch. So, I went back to the computer, opened the reference image in photoshop, and began reworking the background color to see what might work better. By deepening and darkening the same colors (magenta and vermilion) I was able to give it a much better contrast and visual interest.
Now, the fearful attempt on the actual painting. I needed to cover the image with masking, so there’s any number of potential problems that can happen. First, would it even stick to the oil pastels, especially once the airbrush is blowing across it? And if it did hold, would it pull up anything once I remove it? I couldn’t stand to keep the painting as it was, so either I chance it, or toss it. So, I go for it, carefully applying and cutting the masking over the entire piece. It seems to stick, so I mix the acrylic paint for the airbrush and begin. With a sigh of relief, it holds without a single edge flipping loose. I covered the majority of the background with a mix of magenta and black (reddish purple is how it ends up), and then mix vermilion with crimson and black for the bottom (the crimson keeps the mix from becoming a mud color). I round the edge of the piece with a light spray of black, as well as hitting the shadow beneath her feet. I finish it off as before, with a mix of pearl and red ’sparkles’ (showing much more against a darker color).
I peeled the masking off as soon as I could, and another sigh of relief to see nothing was damaged by it. It’s still drying a bit, so no picture tonight, but tomorrow first thing I’ll get that up, and hopefully finish it all by evening.
work progress – troubling paint work, but moving forward
It seems what I gained in Thursday’s productivity was lost yesterday and today. Friday started fine, with painting more details in the hair and skirt, and then painting the feather duster. I had been wondering what method to use for the stockings. Airbrushing is my common way, since it creates a nice subtle texture that differs from the skin in the end. But I had already removed all the masking, I hadn’t cut pieces to go around the stockings only. So, I foolishly thought I could get away with painting it. There isn’t that much detail, so if I applied the gouache in a watery layering method, it should work. I should know better by now that me and paint (on anything besides small detail areas) no longer work well together. I still don’t know why things go as bad as they do, but they continue to do so each and every time. This time, I couldn’t get it to blend well enough, so I added more paint, but that made a bigger mess. I ended up covering both legs in a flat skin tone and let it dry. I figured I could still salvage it by airbrushing over it. I cut new masking, then began airbrushing acrylic over the gouache. The gouache dried darker than I wanted (at least for the light areas) so I needed to get the acrylic fairly solid over it to bring it up. Well, the airbrush mix was too watery and began to run down the masking. I blotted best I could, but it wasn’t drying all too fast on the board either. I think the gouache beneath held some of the water instead allowing it to dry. I consider that an odd thing though, since when I typically paint with gouache, it dries before I can get more than an inch of paint on an area. The paint gods are having quite the laugh at my expense, it seems.
So, I finish the airbrushing, but it’s not looking right at all. And to worsen things, when I remove the masking, it pulls up some paint (lucky it’s not strong enough to pull paper, too!). There also was some leaking beneath the edges of the masking, so that’s going to be a bit of work to fix.
My only choice now is to color the legs with oil pastels, so I paint on the textured gesso over them (and cover all the skin areas as well)…
Today, I got going on the oil pastels, starting at the top (head) and working down, section by section. For the skin areas, I used colored pencils for the color and then oil pastels to blend. For the stockings though, since they already had a dark base now. I went directly with the oil pastels. This also should give them a slightly different color palette than the skin, and hopefully keep them looking like stockings and not just bare legs.
Before I could finish today, though, the paint came back to haunt me once more. I had blocked off the feet with masking (I couldn’t reuse the masking from yesterday, as that stuff was ruined) to protect the white of the shoes from the pastels. As I peeled them off, the left foot pulled up the paint and gesso from the stocking area of the foot. I’ve cleaned it off and re-applied the gesso, but I’ll have to wait until tomorrow now to get the pastels on there.
Otherwise, all the skin and stocking areas are now covered, and I can get to the detailing tomorrow (hopefully finishing the whole piece)…
work progress – airbrush and paint starts
Yesterday was a productive day. After getting the drawing done in the morning, I was able to mask and airbrush the background in the afternoon. I used a light tint mix of magenta acrylic for most of it, with the bottom section a light tint of magenta mixed with vermilion acrylic. I added a few darker streaks on an angle to give it some style, then finished it with a mix of pearl and red ’sparkles’. Once dry, I removed the masking, then outlined everything in relative colors to the area (ie sienna brown for the skin, gray for the white pieces, tan for the stockings)…
Later in the day I began painting. I worked on the face, adding some flesh around the eyes and mouth to ease the blend of the oil pastels later. Then I painted the hair with black and some brown gouache. I continued the black into the bra, mixing some flesh and brown for the sheer panel on the side. Before painting the skirt, I blocked in some dark flesh where the legs are underneath. Then I added the skirt in streaking lines, giving it a woven and lace design. It still needs a bit more, I think. Again, I added some flesh around the edges of everything for the blending.
work progress – paintwork
Yesterday morning I masked and airbrushed the background using a mix of yellow, orange and burnt sienna acrylics…
Once dry, I re-masked to cover all but the sari, which I then airbrushed with a mix of crimson red, vermilion, and white. Then I removed all masking and began painting. I added fold details to the sari with gray and red gouache. I painted the trim with a variety of ochre and yellow gouaches, followed by yellow acrylic for the design. Next, I painted the face and hair with gouache, followed by the rough in of the head piece. I then began painting the lotus flowers, first the small ones in the hands, then the big one below.
All of this went quite smoothly, but then I started to use some white acrylic for highlights in the eyes and to paint in the earrings, and trouble began. I needed it opaque, so I had to keep it somewhat thick, and consequently it was difficult to control. This strikes me strange, since I’ve been painting longer than I have been working with oil pastels, so I would think something so simple would be second nature to me. Maybe the brushes need replacing, or my mind is losing the techniques I once knew…I don’t know. In any case, it proved frustrating, so I gave up a bit early last night (thus why the blog is today, not then). Luckily nothing was harmed, so when I came back to it today, I could continue without trouble. I added a bit more to the big lotus, and then applied the textured gesso to the skin areas, making it ready for the next step – pencils and pastels…
