This is a portrait of my youngest daughter I painted some time ago. My daughter has a fascination for space exploration and wants to learn as much as she can about that subject, of course she wants to be a cosmonaut!I like to paint portraits that are telling a story, they are like illustrations of a book that the viewer has to make up. I also wanted that painting to talk about the magic of youth and the feeling that you have so many options possible for your future.
Here are the steps I took to paint this portrait:
This is my drawing on Arches paper, I did preserve some whites with resist mainly for the eyes and patterns in the background
I applied resist on the white of the eyes and for the highlight on the eye, as well as along the face where the light makes the skin appear white.
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This fluid is used to create striking white highlights or to mask areas for overpainting at a later stage. It forms a fast-drying, water-resistant film on watercolor paper and board, and is easily removed when dry.
I am starting by painting a layer with yellow watercolor ( yellow Ocher and Lemon yellow)
I am cutting out a few shapes in wax paper and will place them on the yellow watercolor layer in the background while the paint is still wet.
Here is a close-up of the background with resist and cut-out wax paper shapes. I want the background to be somewhat between a wall paper and a representation of my daughters thoughts.
Once the yellow layer has dried I paint a layer with different tones of red, aiming for variations that go from orange to more pink tones of red,
I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.
Same palette of traditional colors the great masters used a century ago. Liquid-poured means semi-moist pans respond instantly to a wet brush. 24 pans in plastic case. Also individual pans. – Master Set
The last layer is a layer of blue, I am also using different tones of blue, from Ultramarine blue to Prussian blue. I accentuate the blue highlight on the hair, I then work on the background adding more definition to the patterns with watercolor crayons. You can see faint patterns where the wax paper cut-out were placed.
Originally from France, I have been living in North Vancouver, Canada for the past 20 years.
My work has been collected and exhibited extensively in Canada and internationally. I am also part of the Art Rentals and sales program of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Many of my paintings have been published in Art books and magazines (Artist Magazine, Watercolor Artist Magazine, Acrylic Magazine, International Artist Magazine). I wrote 2 art instruction books with North Light/F+W Books.
I have been writing for the last 5 years for my blog: paintingdemos.com, that has a mailing list of about 10 000 subscribers and about 20 000 visitors per month.
I am an active member in the community, as a co-founder of the North Shore Art crawl, a co-founder of a weekly life drawing group, a board member of the North Vancouver Arts Council, and have been invited as a juror for public art, art grants and juried exhibitions. You can read more about my collaborations here.
Comments (2)
silvia
wax paper wewre simply put on the watercolor paper or glued?
Sandrine Pelissier
Wax paper cut-outs were simply placed on the paper, they stick to it because the paper was still wet.