Ooops! I Almost Forgot . . .

Hello friends! 

I hadn't planned on posting another blog so quickly after the last one, however it suddenly dawned on me I had one major painting that I completed a few weeks ago that I haven't shared with you yet.  Also, I’m quite excited about the one I completed this earlier this week so I'm quite eager to share it with you. I mustn’t forget the eyes either!

First, the one that is called Aphrodite in Pisces. A month ago, in October, Ida Andersen Lang hosted a free, online, ten day long, in depth, art class called Wish Upon A Star.  I think she is starting to do a series of Zodiac portraits as she has done one previously and hinted that more will be following. I loosely followed guidelines for it, while I enjoy her in depth lessons, one problem I have is she is very specific with her materials. I don't have a lot of them, and there isn't much room for improvisation, so I did the best I could with what I've got to hand. This is the end result. First a close up of the face, followed by the finished final outcome.

I think I've come a long way since I started out back in June with the 61 days of index card art challenge and culminated with this which is an A3, so I've gone from small pieces of work to much larger! This one took several days to complete and is mixed media using watercolour pencils, waterproof pencils, gouache, and shimmer paints.

Do you remember I also did a project called the Magic Eye of Ceridwen?  Here's a little reminder

Well, I enjoyed doing it so much that I've divided and A4 journal page into eight sections and I've started doing smaller versions in different colorways experimenting a little bit. I've only done four because I took a break to do some other artwork, so this is something I must to return to

Finally this is the piece I'm most excited about. I think it's become clear I'm really settling down into doing these portraits and I do enjoy them immensely, And one thing I keep doing is trying to push myself out of my comfort zone. Well this one certainly did that! I decided I wanted to try some different skin tones and this is the result. It's a single media using my box of sakura koi watercolours. I can't begin to tell you how difficult it was, nor how much I learned about skin tones which is immense. 

I've learned some new techniques, and my next project is going to be simply worksheets of mixing skin tones and blending them in different ways. I've discovered that you can use almost every colour, even blue, blended in different ways to create different skin tones, and that the more you blend colours rather than use them straight out of the tube or pan, the more natural skin tones you achieve.  Following that, I'll be working on sheets of eyes, noses, lips, and hands!  This is going to take a lot of practise and dedication!

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well

Debbie xo