Paint Seven Paintings in Seven (or more) Days

This is my third painting (on the fourth day of the 7-day challenge and not quite done)—"Little Girl in a Yellow Dress." She and  I spent a lot of time together yesterday and again today, first with drawing, then with painting.

Little Girl in Yellow Dress

When drawing/painting babies and young children, construction and proportion of the head are more important than anatomy. Features are smaller in proportion to the skull. It's all to easy for a baby to look like an old man. This is the first painting (I will do several more paintings of this little girl).

The process: While executing this painting (working from a sketch drawn of a photo) I did a lot of erasing of pencil lines, scrubbing out, drying, re-wetting, and re-painting. The Arches 140 lb. cold press paper took the abuse quite well. Because of re-working, the painting may not be as fresh and I'd like. I drew outlines of my subject (onto the Arches) using a No. 2 pencil; I soaked the paper until it was very wet, blotted it and began painting wet-into-wet—using cadmium red, lemon yellow, cerulean blue. The color was too intense for a child's skin so I dried the paper, scrubbed out color, let the paper dry, and went back in using washes of the same colors. I worked from flesh tones to shadows, hair, features, then tightened the painting. It sounds a lot more expedient than it was.

But I adore her sweet little face.

Thank you, friends and fellow painters, for reading my blog.