She started as a drawing in my journal a while ago (in that week that almost everything I touched turned out wrong ...). I was working on a small canvas and had some acrylics leftover. Since I hate wasting paint, I figured I could just as well try to paint her face with the leftover paint.
Wrong.
I was in a hurry, didn't feel like spending much time on her, she was in my cheap journal that doesn't take paint too well, and it showed. It really showed. In fact, she was so blotchy that I almost tore the page out of my journal.
But then I didn't. Actually, I never do. I just paint over it. But for some reason, I left her alone.
Until 2 days ago. I just bought 2 white charcoal pencils, and was trying them out, browsing through my journal. When I saw her, I started going over her face with the white charcoal. And see! The blotches more or less disappeared! While the color of the acrylics still came through. Another accidental happy discovery!
I went over the shadows again with black charcoal (finally getting over my distaste for charcoal. Thanks to this challenge I might add. I've seen some wonderful faces done with charcoal). Gave her a bit of blush with a red pencil, and that's it!
Today I finished the background with watercolour crayons and oil pastels, and did her hat with Inktense pencils.
And then I scanned her and played in Photoshop. Made a brush of a quote from Bukowski and played around with it.
It was good fun!
So, now I hope I'll be able to visit some more blogs tonight. Thank you all for paying a visit, and thanks so much for your lovely comments. As always: it's greatly appreciated!
You sound like you have had a good day Denthe, you have used a lot of techniques on this portrait, gained appriciation for a media you one disliked and saved a sketch book page from being wiped clean all before midnight, I am impressed!
ReplyDeleteGreat post, glad to see you back after your break
How wonderful Denthe... and what a fabulous discovery... your girl is gorgeous... and just love her hat... and the way you filled the background with words... I hardly ever use charcoal... and I own both black and white... maybe I should try some too...
ReplyDeleteHugs
Jenny x
A real mixed media piece. :) She came out fantastic! Her eyes are stunning!:)
ReplyDeleteshe is wonderful and i love how you used the white charcoal to work what you did not like. thanks for sharing that.
ReplyDeleteDidn't even know there was a beast call white charcoal. I like the page !!! It's always a good feeling when you salvage an undesirable piece.
ReplyDeleteWOW love your cute girl with that cool hat and the background is stunning! How have you done it?
ReplyDeleteIt was done in Photoshop. It's amazing what you can do with that program. I don't even know half of it, and sadly it takes so much time finding out. Anyway, last year or so I found out that there are brushes and patterns that you can download from the internet, OR that you can make yourself. So I went in search of free tutorials and started making my own brushes. And since I'm crazy about poetry and quotes I made text brushes. You can change the color and size and just click it wherever you want it. That's it! Just a lot of trial and error really ....
DeleteI got this comment from carol in my mailbox, but it didn't show up here on my blog. That's the second time already! So now I just copy and paste it ...
ReplyDelete"Didn't even know there was a beast call white charcoal. I like the page !!! It's always a good feeling when you salvage an undesirable piece - Carol "
She's funky and wonderful! I like what you're doing in Photoshop :o)
ReplyDelete