Getting back to my fine art roots

Me in My natural habitat

This past month I had the opportunity to work on a beautiful commission that brought me back to my roots in fine art and portrait painting. When I was approached for this commission, I was both excited and intimidated. While I used to specialize in portraiture, I have been exclusively drawing fashion illustrations for quite some time, and was nervous that I was out of practice.

First attempt at pencil sketch Pencil sketch just before adding paint

The initial pencil sketch was by far the most challenging part of this painting. It was an adjustment drawing in realistic proportions as opposed to the exaggerated proportions I use in my illustrations. I probably drew each of the faces a hundred times before achieving a good likeness, and often felt like I was erasing more than I was drawing. The only exception, surprisingly, was the baby. While babies are usually considered difficult to draw, I guess that the fact that I exaggerate eyes in my illustrations worked in my favor in this case.

It was difficult for me to spend as much time as I did on the pencil sketch, but I am very glad that I did. Adding color is always my favorite part of the process, but I have ruined quite a few pieces by jumping in to color too soon.

When it was finally time to add color, I decided to work in watercolor and colored pencil because I thought that this would achieve the most realistic effect. Watercolor used to be my medium of choice, but since I began illustrating I have worked almost exclusively in marker. Watercolor painting is a very slow process compared to using markers, as you have to wait for each layer of color to dry before adding another. However, I found that my watercolor painting skills came right back to me, and I was reminded how much I love working in the medium.

After achieving the correct tones, and rendering shadows, I used watercolor pencils to define the features. This is when the painting really came to life!

This portrait required a lot of hard work and patience, but I am very proud of the result, and was happy to find that my skills in portraiture did not leave me. I really enjoyed working on this piece, and am now inspired to work on a few watercolor portraits of my own in the near future.