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.
Tag Gia
New art completed – “Luscious”
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…
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.
New art completed – Razzle Dazzle
Yesterday wasn’t as productive I had wished, so I didn’t complete this piece until today. I worked on the details using colored pencils, then smoothed out a few skin areas with oil pastels. I then painted a wash of gray gouache on the hat and gloves, building up layers to give them shape. I finished it off by drawing in the fishnet with black colored pencil. It’s now done and available here.
work progress 12/31 – roughing in skin
I thought it might be possible to finish this before the year’s end, but I still have too much detail work to do, so this will be the first painting of 2010 for me.
Last night I managed to get the textured gesso down on the skin areas, so today I was able to start right in on coloring the skin. Colored pencils were used over each area to get the color tones, then oil pastels were rubbed in to blend and contour it all. There’s some weird light reflection hitting her right forearm in the reference photo – looks too weird on the painting, so I might remove it and make it similar to the other forearm. Otherwise, I still have to detail the skin, vest, and fishnet stockings, plus paint in the white gloves and hat. Hopefully I’ll get to it all tomorrow…
Work progress 12/30 – paint
Today I went through the majority of the paint work. I started with masking out the legs, then airbrushing them with acrylics – first a light flesh, then adding more vermilion to it, then adding to that burnt sienna, and finally a bit of black. It’s thin enough I can still see the fishnet lines beneath it, so that’ll help when I draw them back in.
Next, I masked out the vest and airbrushed it with gray and black acrylics, then a bit of white for some highlights.
With the airbrush work done (I think), I started actual painting. I used gouache for the facial features and hair, then added some red gouache for the vest piping and pocket accents. Next, I used white gouache for the vest’s zipper, and finally black gouache for the shorts…
new art started 12/29
I’ve had this concept in the works for a while now, but it just came together these last couple days. It’s from a buyer’s request to have a complimentary piece to my ‘Razzamatazz’. It continues the Fosse style with the bowler hat and gloves…
model – Gia
I masked out the image and airbrushed some red acrylic over the entire piece. Then I overlapped it with a darker red, working outward, until it was near black for the edges. I finished it with the sparkles, this time using some red, orange and pearl…
New art completed – Sexy Bass’d
I spent the day working on all the details, first using colored pencils, then some oil pastels mixed with turpenoid. I wasn’t sure if I was going to add the stars to the kerchief, but after everything was completed, it felt empty and undefined, so I put them in with white gouache. It’s finished now, and available here.
Sexy Bass'd
