Michaela

There was a lot of dark shadow in my source photo, so I planned on having bark as the main colour with a bit of leaf green here and there for variety.  The idea was to use three different values of bark for shadows of different intensities.  The green would just be a bonus.  Instead, I deviated from my plans quickly by using bark for the darkest darks and green for the semi darks.  A bad mistake.  This also meant that I couldn’t use the leaf green as the bonus colour.  Instead, for bonus colours, I used chilli red and sea blue.  And, as usual with reds and blues, I used too much of them.  I’m left with something where red, green, blue and bark share top billing rather than:

– Plan A: bark the star, leaf green the co star

– Plan B: bark and green the stars, red and blue not even co stars really

Because there was a bit of mat at the very bottom, I felt the need to add a bit of mat behind the model.  This was a mistake, with the mat behind the model getting confused with the model (because I used bark and a bit of white – what was I thinking?). So I decided to add some scribbly background, using bark at first but then adding some sun yellow.  I actually don’t mind how the background turned out.  It looks a bit dirty and shabby but if that’s good enough for Dragons’ Den, then it’s good enough for me.

Although there are bits I’m not 100% happy with (like the left leg, which looks like a dog toy sitting in the background), this one’s going up for sale.  The shabby wall at the back and the gesture in the pose are both great, although I can only take credit for one of those positives.