More portrait practice

Found my lost photos, for some reason Windows "hid" them when I rotated them. Anyhow, back to portrait practice. I'm trying to get the skin tone darker. I also had a big breakthrough on this one. I keep making her nose too long, that's why I can't get the likeness right. Will try again soon.

Watercolor canvas

Long time between posts. Finished this about two weeks ago. The pictures a little blurry, I didn't use a tripod. Will have to try it again. I had a couple more to post but when I rotated them, they disappeared off my computer? I'll have to retake them.

Class finished

We had our last class Tuesday. I'm still not sure about the watercolor canvas but I do see where it could work better then paper. I have several sheets left so I will keep playing with it until I figure out if I do like it. But for now it's back to portrait practice. Here's all the watercolor canvas's I did in class and out. Still trying to figure out the camera issue, got a new to me one yesterday.

Class project

Started in class, I'm not a flower painter

Three I did at home, the first two are loose sheets, the third is mounted on board

And finally one on stretched watercolor canvas

One from class and the final version of seascape (maybe)

We did a wet in wet background and then picked the flowers out. Marcia did a blue background with white flowers, very effective. I did green, blue background with spink flowers, not as effective. Anyhow worked it over, here's the results, might do more in class.

Tweaked the seascape some more. I' might consider this one done before I make it worse. Darkened the waves behind the cliff, lightened the horizon and played with the water in the foreground.

Watercolor canvas demo

After drawing out my basic outlines, I put in the first wash of color on the water and the sky. Permanent rose and prussian blue.

Next i put in the distant mountains.

Third step was blocking in the closer shorelines. Prussian blue and burnt seinna for the second point, and then yellow ochre, burnt sienna and a touch of sepia for the closer shorelines and rocks.

Next I started working on the water. I scrubbed out the lighter areas and then dropped in the darker areas.Still prussian blue and permanent rose.

You can see the mountains need adjusting, the clouds need adjusting. I worked on those issues and dropped some more color in the closer shoreline.

This is where I've left off for now. I hope to have it finished by the end of the week. Today is class and hopefully we'll get the river painting done and start on something else. No class last week, snow day!

More portrait practice

I hope this woman never see's this blog! At least it's starting to look more like her.

This is still on lower quality paper. The skin looks terribly overworked even though it shouldn't. I ordered some Fabriano and more watercolor canvas so the next one will be on better quality paper. Hopefully that will let the paint flow a littler better so it won't look so over worked. Face is proportioned better, mouth is  a little off to the one side. Still much improved, I'm happy with the progress.

Watercolor canvas progress

I don't think I will be going to Missoula today for painting class, blizzard conditions and lot's of people out there that don't know how to drive in snow conditions. If this happened 20 years ago I wouldn't hesitate about going to class. Now with so many transplants from warm weather states it's not safe to head out in the first big storm of the season.  Just heard on the television, all schools in Missoula are closed, that settles that!
Here's where we left it after last Tuesday class after a little more tweaking. Marcia was going to show us how to us the air brush on it, but equipment failure put an end to that.

There is a weird reflection on this picture. I used the tripod but need to figure out how to change the lighting to get rid of the flash.