Girl in Pink

Girl in Pink • Watercolor on Unknown 100% Rag Paper

This is another in my series #Playing With Paint. I drew the initial sketch (inspired by a black and white photo in a book). After placing a smaller piece of watercolor paper on my Masonite board, I wet the paper on both sides and began flooding it with color — warm and cool. After mopping up drips, I began the process of lifting paint to find her face. I painted in, lifted out, going back and forth as many times as needed. I scraped out highlights in her hair, emphasized lines in her face and dress with a watercolor pencil.

Color Sketch of a Girl • Painting with colors from The Old Masters' Palette plus Cobalt Blue

Color Sketch of a Girl: painting w colors from The Old Masters' Palette + Blue

Last week while painting I ran rampant with color. Today I limited colors to those employed by the Old Masters: Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, and Payne's Gray. And I added Cobalt Blue.

To start, I did a pre-painting drawing directly on the (dry) watercolor paper. I firmed outlines with a rigger brush using cobalt blue watercolor, then reaffirmed some lines with a Derwent pencil in Dark Indigo.

Because the flip side of my paper featured one of my unsuccessful (very colorful!) paintings, I immersed the sheet in a basin of cold water and placed the paper unpainted side up on a Masonite board. I soaked excess water with a large natural sea sponge, picked up a flat brush, loaded it with Yellow Ochre and launched into placing paint on the wet paper.

Exciting! It's always fun to watch what happens. A brush stroke loaded with a particular color might work — or it might not.