Bailey

After a few days off dealing with all sorts of other stuff in my life, I’m back to work again. Ā Today it’s some figure drawing in coloured pencils and it’s a debut for Bailey as model.

There’s nothing new to say about my methodology. Ā I put down the starting drawing using a 5×7 grid of squares. Ā Then I put on the colour. Ā Throughout the process I would stare at the painting and try to identify which colour was missing. Ā Then I’d add the colour where could see it in the source photo and then in some places where I just fancied putting it down. Ā Some of those places were influenced by how I was drifting into putting warmer colours on rightward and downward facing edges and cooler onto leftward and upward.
After I thought enough colour was on. I burnished the painting all over. Ā I used a light grey on the tablecloth, raw sienna on the hair and a combination of white and beige red on the flesh. Ā Afterwards I tinkered by adding more colour on top: some sepia in the shadows on the cloth (where I tried to get soft edges), indigo on all the shadiest bits on the body and a few different colours in the hair. Ā I also outlined all the body and hair in indigo. Ā Finally I put in a greeny blue background.
While this one’s not terrible, there are a few things about it that bug me:
– the sticky out bit at the top of the left thigh sticks out too much
– the right arm out in the left doesn”t harmonise with the rest of the body, so doesn’t look like part of it
– the hair feels a bit too intensely coloured compared to the rest of the body
– worst of all, the right shoulder looks instead like part of a very wide neck
On the other hand, the tablecloth looks ok this time, with no signs of laziness, and the colours on the body (the indigo in particular) look good. Ā This one’s up for sale. To see the price, click here.

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