I don’t know if this sickness had been working it’s way into my system for weeks back when I said I felt a little off, but last week it hit full force. A visit to the doctor got things moving in the right direction, but it still made for a slow an un-energetic time. I wasn’t bedridden though, so I did find a design to work on when I could. This one has been ready to go for months actually, I just hadn’t felt strongly enough about it to pursue it until now. A fresh look at it and I couldn’t see anything to change, so I proceeded as is, drawing it on paper…
model -Kneely
I masked it out, and began airbrushing the background. I started with a light cerulean blue for the sky and a start on the water. To that I added more and more ultramarine as I covered the lower area of the water. Once dry, I didn’t feel the water had that Caribbean look that I wanted, so I brush-painted the top-half of the water with turquoise and white. I also used the brush to bring in some ripple texture to all the water. To complete the water, I airbrushed a coating of blue and pearl ‘sparkles’. Before removing any masking, I blocked in the island rock with a very dark gray acrylic, adding details to it with colored pencils (as well as the distant islands)…
I left some of the masking on because I knew I would airbrush the tail next. I covered the background completely, then airbrushed it first with a salmon pink, then mixing in blue on up the tail to a true blue at the end. Like the water, I used colored pencils for detailing and further shading. I finished it off with a more solid coat of the ‘sparkles’, first blue, then red to match the tail’s coloring (the flash for these photos reflects those metallics, so they don’t look quite like it will in the end when it’s scanned)…
Next, I began work on the painting. I used gouache for the face, followed by the hair. I added a seaweed belt or skirt using gouache and then colored pencils for detail. I then masked out everything but the skin, and blocked that in using colored pencils and oil pastels…
today I believe I have completed it, and hope to have it scanned and up tonight or early tomorrow.
