Katya

Ok, it’s been a while but I’m back painting again today.  I suspect that it’s going to be too cold to paint outside until the Spring, so there won’t be any oil pastels or watercolours until then and that I’ll instead be cozy indoors using the markers and inktense pencils.  Anyway, today it was the inktense pencils.  Give a big hand to today’s model Katya.  It’s her first time so make her feel welcome.

As usual, I started with a pencil drawing.  Recently I’ve been trying to copy the photos by dividing the paper up into squares but today’s was freehand and I think it looks OK.  Then came the colours.  Today it was deep indigo, then violet, then bright blue, then shiraz and finally leaf green, which is becoming a real favourite, adding exotic flesh tones while contrasting against the red.

After I activated all the ink with water, I realised that the bottom of Katya’s bottom leg was wrong.  I think I’d treated a big shadow area on the leg as if it were a big shadow on the table.  So I added some more ink there and it’s gone on maybe a bit too thick.

I also couldn’t keep my hands off the huge empty area on the paper, so I added Katya’s name just to be a bit different.  While it emphasises that the model here is a real human being and makes you wonder what she’s thinking, I don’t think it really works.  I’d have been better off leaving it empty.

Overall, not too bad for the first painting in a while.  But not good enough to go up for sale, being spoilt by the caption and the bottom leg.  A shame because this was a fantastic pose by Katya.