Sunday, May 03, 2009

Skintones in watercolour


The week's hectic pace has run over into the weekend and I ended up having to go to work for a meeting on Saturday which ran over. Then running around afterwards trying to do some errands ensured that I didn't get home til around 5, so the day was shot.

I haven't had time to many inroads into projects that desparately need attention and tend to go off on tangents in the form of drawings or small paintings that aren't truly inspired or destined for anywhere but 'the' drawer. You know, the one where pieces that you lose interest in or that don't work out go to spend their days.

I did play around with a watercolour portrait, just to keep my hand in. I am continually working on the right palette for cool skin tones. I'm a real fan of blues for shadows for people with fair colouring, but they can be easily overdone and need to be balanced with reds and yellows to add some warmth as well.

This watercolour paper is Bockington 140lb and is very pale blue. The image here is taken in daylight and is quite cool overall. The image at the beginning of the post taken under artificial light and you can see that it adds a warmer tone to the piece.

I even remembered to take a couple of progress shots while I was doing this that may be useful to see the process of how I work.

6 comments:

Rose Welty said...

Such a mischievous grin there! Lovely Jeanette.

Jo Castillo said...

This is great. You work so well with the watercolors.

Felicity Grace said...

That is a beautiful portrait. The colours are so delicate. I'm still trying to work blue into my skintones but not finding it easy. They look wonderful here!

vivien said...

this is a lovely delicate portrait full of mischievous character :>)

Jeanette Jobson said...

Its always fun trying to capture expression Rose.

Thanks Jo. I'm determined to conquer the medium.

Felicity, blues can work well with cool skin tones but it is a fine line between enough and overkill.

Thank you Vivien, glad you like it.

Peggy Montano & Paintings said...

I am so in awe of watercolor portratis. Great job, Jeanette.