Finished

The last couple of days have been quite hectic and I haven't had much drawing or painting time, so early mornings and late nights I played a bit more with this portrait and am calling it done for now.  The piece is on a half sheet (15 x 22) of 300lb Arches hot press watercolour paper.  Its fun to work portraits that are larger than life, but challenging too as features become almost abstract when done on a much larger scale until you step back from the painting.

I'm not completely happy with the hair, but will let it sit for awhile and see if it needs tweaking.  Hair is something I don't particularly like doing. Its a complex thing, even when broken down into basic values and shapes.  I don't want to get into too much detail and loose the impressionistic feel of the piece, but it needs to look like hair.

I worked layers of pastel over the watercolour on the hair.  Its forgiving and works well on the paper surface and has the element of quicker coverage.   For some reason, hair in watercolour alone I find particularly difficult, probably why I revert to pastel when I can for it, even if I can get the same speed of coverage with watercolour too.  Just one of my quirks.

With my mother currently in hospital, I'm to-ing and fro-ing to town and to feed her cats while she's not there.  With a hectic work schedule and added trips, it becomes a bit of a juggling act at times.  Hopefully I can have some downtime this weekend and get some more drawing and painting started.

With Halloween tomorrow, it should be fairly quiet here.  The advantage of living in a more isolated spot is that there are rarely kids trick or treating as the road to the house is long and dark and scary.
Perhaps tomorrow its time to tell a ghostly tale or two...

Edit:   I've taken a couple of photos of the piece in daylight.  During the week, I never seem to be around when its light. This gives a truer impression of the reality of colours in this portrait  which are much cooler than under incandescent or florescent lighting.