portrait of a lady

Okay, finally, finally, I am posting on my blog.  This is my most recent project, a portrait of my dear friend, Amy Merrick, who is stepping out into the world of Creativity.  She is incredibly brave and creative and talented, and I wish her luck, not that she needs it, because I have full faith that she will do wonderful things, and have a wonderful life for it.

So first, this is my sketch of her.

Then I did some test patches, which (turned out) was good thinking because after not having painted for a year (oh my god it's been a year since school) I was really rusty.  I knew that you had to paint skin with blue and yellow and red, but I couldn't quite figure it out.  I thought the second patch was a total gonner until I added some burnt sienna (a color my professor forbade us from using) and it ended up being my favorite, even more so than the final!

Here is the final, which I painted on my super fancy arches paper.  I actually don't like the way this paper took the paint as much as the cheaper paper I used for the tests.  It was...too nice.  It blended too perfectly, there wasn't as much evidence of the act of painting.  But I gave them all to her, so she can pick which one she likes best.  Lots of love to my Amy Merrick.