I'm still in too much of a rush today. After that Gareth Southgate disaster, I…
Sam
It’s raining outside, which is a big frustration because I have a great idea for my next watercolour. Instead I’m stuck indoors and thought I’d have a go at a monotone painting with the inktense pencils to remind myself that I don’t have to go crazy with the colours every time and to get in a bit of practice with values. I think there’s some stuff from the Tony Smibert book rattling around my head, along with some tips on drawing people from a Liron Yanconsky YouTube video.
Today’s model is Sam, making her debut. I picked this photo because it had some great lights and darks and in between shades: an ideal subject for a monotone painting.
I picked indigo as my colour. It’s the best inktense colour in my collection for painting in monotone. Just going off on a tangent for a second, that’s got me wondering whether there are sepia inktense pencils. They’d be pretty good for monotone paintings and there will be spare slots in my case available if and when I throw away the white and marker pencils that I never use.
Anyway, I did the usual thing, putting down a pencil outline, then adding colour with the side of the pencil. I had four values in mind. In putting down the colour, I put lots down in the darkest places and a medium amount in the second darkest, leaving the two lightest value areas empty. It was only when I wet the pencil marks that I brushed some of the colour from the two darkest values into the third darkest value areas. The lightest areas I just left white – something I’ve not been doing enough just lately. And I left a couple of lost edges.
Overall, this looks like a success to me. If I were to be given the chance to do anything differently, I’d blend in and soften some of the edges of the darkest shapes but that’s getting picky. The best bit about this one are the white highlights on the body. And I’m also quite pleased that the hands and foot didn’t come out too badly. Sam’s up for sale.
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