Ameeka

I thought I’d try replicating the success of  Thea 5 by using the exact same colours again.  So I started with brown in the darkest places, then added sanguine, magenta, yellow, ochre and blue wherever I fancied.  In the case of blue, that meant all the shadowy areas.  I decided later on to draw in some outlines and to add some colour to the background.  I started with a yellow background on the left and black on the right to try to contrast against the body but ended up throwing some other colours too.

To wet the colours, I did my usual thing and dotted all over the place rather than brushing over areas, which does exactly the opposite of mixing colours.  And there was a big surprise as usual, with the colours looking nothing like they did in Thea 5.  Maybe I just didn’t include enough of the red or the sanguine.

And there’s something else there that I’n not overly fond of either: the choppiness of the brush marks.  The marks on the body are entirely down to me – I must have been drawing with the corners of the blocks (as opposed to the edges) too much.  In the background, though, I had a problem with the black block.  It must have has some sort of tiny pimples nearby corners because I couldn’t draw with the edges without creating the sort of lines I get when drawing with corners.  And I was just too lazy to smooth down the blocks to correct this.

While this isn’t my best Artgraf painting I still think it’s good enough to go in the shop window, so there.

For my next Artgraf figure, though, I’ll be changing my strategy when it comes to choosing a subject.  Rather than looking for photos with the biggest differences between shadowy areas and highlights (which normally make for great paintings) I’ll be looking for more mid–toned photos.  That way maybe I’ll not feel the need to include so much blue in the shadows.  And, whisper it, maybe even leave empty white areas on the body like I do with inktense pencil figures.