Thea 5

I put down two outlines using a grid: one was of the body and the other the outline of the darkest shadows.  It might be interesting at some point for me to try painting the shadows using the Artgraf like watercolour pans, but I find it more fun to draw the paint on using the Artgrafs like chalks and to wet the paint afterwards.  So I drew over all the dark areas with the brown Artgraf (a colour that looks to me more like sepia).   I tried to be careful and to apply the colour as lightly as possible.  And then I added some colour by putting in the blue, both yellows and both reds wherever I could see those colours and at one point I think I found myself jamming along to Molly Hatchet and adding colours wherever I felt like it.

Once I was happy with the pigment on the paper, I added water.  As is normal for me with these Artsgrafs, I would stab in a little bit of water with a tiny brush, then rinse and clean the brush before going on to to another spot on the painting to wet.  This method seemed to work out today, maybe because my wetting was quite watery, not leaving hard edges, so not turning the body into loads of rectangles joined together.

For finishing touches, I added what I thought were some missing colours: some blue between the butt cheeks and some red and yellow on Thea’s right hand.  For both of these I used the Artgraf like watercolour pans.  Finally I added some water to all the white shapes on the body and tried to coax in watery versions of the adjacent colours.  It worked in places.

And that was me done.  This feels to me like a big success, with so many colours and brush marks bringing it to life.  Thea’s up for sale.

Oh, and the surprise element in these Artfgraf paintings even surpasses that for inktense pencil paintings.  I had absolutely no idea what colours I was going to see here, whereas with inktense pencils I at least have a vague idea.