Paint Seven Paintings in Seven Days • Day #2 • Painting #2

Meet Henri. Meet Henri is my second painting in the challenge: Paint Seven Paintings in Seven Days. Along with painting portraits in watercolor, I set a few more objectives for myself: Paint seven new paintings; Draw and paint people of different ages;  Explore seven different painting procedures; Enjoy the process.

Meet Henri • Watercolor

Edgar Whitney, former instructor at Pratt University (my first professional watercolor workshop instructor and one of my favorites) said the two-fold problem in painting a watercolor portrait is (1) likeness and (2) a fresh sparkling watercolor. To gain a likeness, he painted five or six paintings of the subject. To achieve freshness, flatly refusing "to beat the life out of [his] portraits," he made them in twenty to thirty minutes (each).

The process: Meet Henri was painted using Edgar Whitney's "Dry Method A." Referring to a sketch, I made a charcoal line drawing of Henri's face and features directly onto the watercolor paper. I went over the line with a brush and plain water (to fix the charcoal). I used a 1-1/2 inch flat brush to paint a warm, light-value wash over the entire paper (covering his eyes too). Colors: yellow ochre, cadmium red light, and cobalt blue. While the first wash was wet, I defined larger masses using various combinations of the triad plus burnt sienna. As the paper began to dry, I painted the eyes, nose, mouth, hair, shirt, background.

Did I meet my goals? (1) It's the second painting on Day 2 of the challenge, (2) It's a new painting, (3) I painted a little boy (for a change), (4) I used a different painting procedure, and (5) I enjoyed the process. I loved seeing this little guy's impish face develop on the paper.