continuing steps on "new life" and "i am lakhota"

"new life"

as in a lot of my projects that linger for want of a finish, i find that this "may watercolor challenge" , too, is starting to lose its interest for me. i am, however, determined to finish it. my challenge will be to finish it in a thoughtful fashion and not just storm through to be rid of it. in pursuit of this i have put a somewhat lighter wash down on the left side of the background to start to paint the doorway which is the source for the diffused sunlight which illuminates the objects of interest, the girl and the chick. this i did by pre-wetting the area with clear water and a 2" flat that i found in a drawer this morning that i had forgotten that i had. worked pretty well for this but gave me neither the control, nor the variety of strokes that i was looking for with the actual application of the paint. for this i used the 1" flat. the colors are ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and umber, quinacridone gold, and a touch of mineral violet. when this is dry i will start to paint in the textures and define the individual bracing boards.

"i am lakhota"

on to my more current project that i started as a demonstration at the recent eastbank artists' monthly meeting "i am lakhota". i used pretty much a #6 round brush for all of these steps. i put down a slightly mixed puddle of alizarin crimson permanent, quinacridone gold with just a touch of cadmium red light and started with the mouth. a dab of the mixture in each corner and in the middle and then pulled this out to the rest of the upper lip with a damp clean brush. i also ran a single perpendicular stroke with the same damp clean brush from just below the nose through the *left* side of her lip to lose that edge which is in shadow. the cleft was put in in pure cerulean blue as was the shadow under the lower lip. this lower dab however was expanded to the shadow side of her chin with the reddish mixture as i described above. some of the shadow side neck was defined using the red mixture darkened with more alizarin and a bit of burnt sienna, bringing it down over the top of her shirt that is involved in the same shadow shape. i strengthened some of the shadow shapes around both eyes with the same colors admixed on the paper. the hair splotches were painted in with ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and a dab of mineral violet to start to explain the lateral aspects of her face which are bordered by her hair. as usual, i couldn't resist a few scrapes on both sides when the paper had lost its sheen and i was sure the result would be a light strand of hair and not a dirty,

close up of "i am lakhota"

dark line (which would happen if i scraped too early, just a matter of trial and error for what works in your area and its relative humidity). the whole thing needed a good dry at this time so i will stop for the time being and allow that to happen. more later.