Cathy Jean

Back to the inktense pencils and figure drawing. All these different artistic styles and media are like spinning plates and if I don’t keep coming back to practice, all my skills and experience will disappear. Ā And with there being an England game on at 5, I didn’t want to go the full watercolour and feel rushed.

Subject matter today is Cathy Jean, a blues singer, so not an artistic model today. Ā It’s based on the cover of her In The Remains album, an album that I haven’t got and that is out of print but whose availability I’m continuing to monitor.
I started with iris blue and bright blue. Ā The album cover gave me a cold feeling rather than warm, so blues felt like the right way to go. Ā There wasn’t enough difference between these so I added indigo in the darkest bits. Ā CJ’s hair started as sun yellow, with a bit of baked earth for variety. Ā The pencil marks and the water on top were both curled in scribbly marks rather than just marked up and down. Ā Jewellery and the brightest bits on the shoes were also inked in sun yellow. Ā Iris blue and bright blue were used for the wall on the left and baked earth for the floor.
I wasn’t satisfied with the outcome. Ā The yellow was too stark against the blues, resulting in a lack of harmony. Ā So I added some orange to both the adornments and the hair to tone them both down. Ā At the same time, I added occlusion shadows in violet. Ā And then added some leaf green to the flesh in places, remembering how this makes the skintones look more exotic. Ā Finally, I added some edges in violet where I thought they were needed.
I think the final result is pretty good. Ā I like the green skintones, the texture of the hair and what little I’ve drawn of the head. Ā The hands are also OK for once, and there’s a bit of missing edge in the small of her back. Ā Her right leg is the weakest bit of the painting.
She’s not going in the shop,window with a leg like that,

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