"Red Girl" - Not Available

Description: Well I wasn't planning on posting this morning but then I found myself on google looking up "insulin growth factor-1" and I suddenly scrolled through all of my history from this morning and it was saturated with metabolism functions, not that that's horrible but I suddenly realized that I'd been doing this far longer then I needed to be so I decided to balance things out with an update of my blog. So there you go and here it is. I'm currently taking a life-painting class that has pushed my watercolor skill to it's limit, but the improvements are remarkable! At the start of this class I liked nothing I produced and now I'd say I like more then 50% of what I do. There is no doubt that the life one leads, and the thoughts one thinks are registered plainly in his face. -Spencer W. Kimball

This first picture is my favorite, and the first one I did that I actually liked (in color), which is depressing because I haven't been able to top it yet and I've probably done 12 others since. I figured out that "glazing" (letting each layer of color dry before the next goes on, thus building the pigment) works well for me, I like that I can get detailed with glazing, I was trying to drag the color down before but I just was getting sloppy drips.

This next portrait is one of the first studies I did. It's in Payne's Gray. I think that watercolor is a ton easier when you do it from a picture, it's so hard 1. Detaching yourself from the colors you actually see (mostly because they dry at 50% the intensity). 2. Because if your model moves at all... good luck getting your pigment up (I've found that using the smoother watercolor paper seems to help with this, I use a magic eraser to scrub off what I don't want and the more texture the more things seem to "scrape and scratch = staining your paper or creating a place that will take whatever you lay into it next and never let go). Anyway there are other reasons but these are the main ones.

This next one is an experiment with background, I've had a lot of designing trouble, not sure why but it seems like the oil painters have an easier time then me with that. This girl turned out a little promethean looking, but I remember being pretty pleased with the measurements, so I'm not sure, maybe the angle is an issue.

This one was the first value study I liked. The design was awful (I cropped it out) but I thought I did good on the proportions. (I haven't taken head drawing).

Ok and last we have hands, this isn't the best had study ever but for my second time I thought it was worth posting. I actually felt way better about my hand studies then my head studies so I didn't do to many hand studies because I wanted to focus on heads. I think this would have turned out awesome if the models hands didn't move so drastically between poses (we have 5 minute breaks every 30 min). That bottom hand moved ALOT during the session so I was fairly happy with how it turned out. Re-posing hands is basically impossible.
(These photos were taken from my phone so I'm sorry they are so poor quality).