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Step by Step watercolor layering Demonstration : Profile Portrait of Sophie

Layering watercolor to paint portraits on ARTiful, painting demos by Sandrine Pelissier
Step by step demonstrations

Step by Step watercolor layering Demonstration : Profile Portrait of Sophie

Painting watercolor portrait by layering each primary color allows for a better control of edges and tones and makes that challenging subject easier to handle.

Step by Step watercolor layering Demonstration : Profile Portrait of Sophie

drawing on watercolor paper

This is my drawing on the watercolor paper, I did my original drawing on newsprint and then transferred it on the watercolor paper.I did a contour drawing but also tried to mark places where color was changing.

watercolor portrait painting techniques, layering colors

This is my yellow layer, with two types of yellows. Yellow ocher will work better for the skin tones here and then Cadmium yellow in the background.

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watercolor portrait painting techniques, layering colors

This is my red layer. As with the yellows I am using two types of red, referring to my picture to see where the reds seem more orange or more pink.

Adding blue watercolor to complete the layering painting technique

With the blue layer, I tried to go very light as it can quickly become too much. I have also two blues, a cooler Prussian blue and a warmer ultramarine. I used the ultramarine for the areas in the shade and the Prussian blue closer to the highlighted areas.

Step by Step watercolor layering Demonstration : Profile Portrait of Sophie

Profile portrait of Sophie

This is the finished painting, I made some corrections and added a gouache background.

5/5 - (1 vote)

Comments (6)

  1. Susanne

    Very helpful video tutorial!

  2. […] Profile portrait of Sophie […]

  3. […] Profile portrait of Sophie […]

  4. […] Profile portrait of Sophie […]

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