Face in the Shadows II

I should have painted this whilst working on the other Face in the Shadows. I wanted to create another painting to compliment the first one, but it went horribly wrong..... I think I was trying too hard to get the mystical background to match the first painting. I ended up overworking the background and the top section of her head should not have been so pronounced but should have just faded away into the background. She does not look like she is coming out of the shadows at all! Oh Well! Thought I'd add this in just to show you that I did try and do a follow-up! I do like the way her face turned out though as I did not use a preliminary sketch as a guide.

I am enjoying my painting at the moment and have a mountain of subjects to try and experiment with. But that I'll will be tomorrow's task.

Till then..................

Playing with Washes

I add this little sketch with trepidation. I feel it is not worth the viewing but I thought, for prosperity's sake I'd add it to my blog as I do plan to take this further. I'll enjoy coming back in about a year's time to view how my painting style as evolved. This is a little sketch, playing with a 'first wash'. Minus pencil.  I was challenging myself with the encouragement from a friend to work in a loose style. Watch this space.................

Face in the Shadows - DONE!

I am calling this done!

FACE IN THE SHADOWS

I will have to do another now........ perhaps his partner or wife! 

Final touches - Face in the Shadows

This is looking a little better with the shadows added and the features enhanced. I had a little giggle when my domestic help (who is a S Sotho lady) saw this.... she said it was "scary" and promptly asked me why I painted it like that. I must say that it does have an unnerving feel about it. Hope she does not think that I was portraying her people as sinister and villainous!

The look I am trying to portray is one of rough rural Africa. The earthy tones just worked well with this subject and gave it a 'wood carving' feel. We have a lot of African sculptors here in South Africa who do the most amazing wood sculptures from the trunks of trees.

What I love about this is how the brown earthy colours meld so beautifully together and frame the subject, giving it a mystical touch.

Second wash - 'Face in the Shadows'

After looking at my painting and studying the shapes that appeared on the paper from the first wash, I was getting a feel of where the features were going to be placed. This was done minus any pre-drawing. After the features were in place I added more structure and depth around the features still adding copious amounts of water to my paper and letting the colours run into each other.

Colours used at this stage were - Burnt Sienna, Cerulean Blue, Cadmium Yellow and French Ultra Marine Blue. I still don't know whether this is a male or female..... will have to wait and see.......

I love watching the colours mingle and the appearance of blooms forming on the paper. I quite enjoy these two sections here... hope they are still visible on the completed piece.

First wash - 'Face in the Shadows'

The hiatus is over!
I am sitting here working on my desktop whilst my laptop is in for a facial, manicure and clean-up . She was acting up and performing incredibly slow and needed a little boost. The frustration of not being able access my blog these last couple of days was so infuriating to say the least but we found the problem and it's now something of the past.

Today I finally got round to painting after a long hiatus. My holiday down at the coast for our summer break was magic but just not the right kind of weather to be indoors painting, . I did however take my watercolour travel kit down to the beach with me in the hope of doing a few sketches to paint larger pieces when I got back to our holiday home. Instead I got so engrossed in a wonderful book.... I did manage to do a few rough sketches one morning under the umbrella after I got a little too sunburnt the day before. I'm also not one for sitting on the beach with people peering over my shoulder to see what I'm are painting. I had lost my muse a bit there as life was just too busy and to crown it all, I had left my quality watercolour paper back home and was saddled with inferior paper.

Sheepishly, I felt justified that the my bag of art supplies took preference over the hubby's golf clubs in the trailer, as I got a few sketches in and it did get used. Anyway, I have decided that this year is going to be MY year and I'm going to paint and paint and paint!

Hope you all have a wonderfully fulfilling 2010 and achieve all you have set out to do this year. Thank you all for your support in my blog, I'll continue to keep you up-to-date in all I achieve this year.

This is a first wash of something I have in mind..... working from my imagination, I am going to see what develops here.....................