Life model drawings. 

   

  But first. I did a little urban sketching yesterday. A store downtown has some wild Easter hats. The purple one is the talk of the town. A huge bow and rhinestones. What else could a girl want?! Trying to get some of my friends to meet to try them on.  So far no takers. Pentel brush pen and watercolor in my Stillman and Birn zeta. Greys made with cerulean and yellow ochre or Quin sienna and cobalt. 

My brush pen started leaking I mean pouring after I drew this.  So I paused at a new u table to clean up my hands and the pen. Reseat the cartridge. All the time two large

Groups of ladies walked by bound for Crosbys all in a twitters giggly bunch. Paused in front of the purple hat phong and aging before going into shop for their special Easter bonnet. I really enjoyed evesdropping on them. They were so enthralled in their conquests.  The things you learn when you go sketching.  

I used a lot of Quinacridones on this.  Quin Coral magenta and sienna. The purple hat is Quin magenta and cobalt or ultramarine. The jillion rhinestone are white gouache.   

Erica is a lovely young lady. Things actually went fairly smoothly today. The colors I used were DS Quin Coral which makes beautiful skin, cerulean, burnt sienna ultramarine blue cobalt and yellow ochre. And that’s it. Six colors!!  

Step 1 – coral and yellow ochre over the face and upper torso. Then I added burnt sienna and cerulean in the shadows. I dipped the brush in water and shook the it out. Then I dipped it in the color I was using. I usually applied burnt sienna first trying not to leave hard edges. 

The shadow colors were put on individually and allowed to mingle wet on wet. 

I did all this painting pretty quickly in less than ten minutes. She was at this point at the first 30 minute break. 

  

I then used the same colors on her legs. 

  

This is what she looked like when I brought her home. Erica is tall and quite slim but I think I got her TOOO slim. What to do?! 

  

This is as she is now.  I realized her neck was too short leaving the shoulder on the right side of the neck too high aka too long. I shortened it about 1/4 inch and now her torso does not look so long. I also realized she had too much hair on top of her head. 

Her eyes were not centered in her head.  Oops!! So I shave a bit off with my scrubber aka my old grumbacher hog bristle filbert. Much better. 

What else needs correction. That forehead is too high and the legs are I think too long but I will probably only fix the forehead. 

I seem to enjoy painting the furniture the quilt and the legs best.  Less demands.  I put on wet color with abandon and let the colors flow and mingle. 

 

 The greys

The grey is made with cobalt and burnt sienna. Makes a lovely grey. I used it on the floor and the quilt. 

 The darks are done with ultramarine blue and burnt umber. That combo was used for the hair and the chair.  It can make almost black. 

Background cerulean and yellow ochre. Really like the way it turned out.  Not too much covered. Lots of white. 

All sable paint brushes  Raphael #8 & 2 and one of my favorite brushes my Isabey #6. I would have used my #2 but darn I left it at home.  It would have been the perfect brush for the details on her face. They make such lovely points. 

 

 Her mouth was done with burnt umber with a tiny bit of cerulean added not mixed but dabbed in. Same thing under her lip. I did go back into the eye socket area with those two colors to define the eyes a bit.  The head is not two inches long so not a lot of room for detail. 

Thanks for looking.