Watercolor Portrait of Young Woman Looking Down

This is a little watercolor of a young woman with a dark brown complexion. I did it on a 9x12 paper. It was inspired by a photo in a catalog.

I sketched her a couple of times before attempting to paint the picture. Using a lightbox, I traced the best sketch onto the watercolor paper. First, I used a little blue, lavender, and violet in the background to break up the white.  The underpainting of the portrait began with a wash of orange mixed with sienna for a reddish-brown color.

I ran out of time, so I let the first wash dry and returned to it a few days later to add another wash of burnt umber and ultramarine blue for the shadows. I kept deepening the shadows with more blue of the blue-brown mix and began to add some Payne's gray to the darkest areas.

I wish I had done the blue highlights earlier than I did because I inadvertently washed orange into the highlights areas that needed to be lifted out with clear water but left the paper stained, which muddied some highlights. It is probably more realistic that way anyway.

I often overdo the darks and found I had to go back to lift out some color. The color was not looking rich enough, so I added some more sienna with some red mixed in. There was more need to lift out some of the colors since I kept overdoing it.

I always leave the hair for last. I started with a wash of brown-black. After the first wash dried, I went back over it with Payne's gray for the darker areas. I had to build it up a bit. 

Watercolor Portrait of a Young Woman Looking Down

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Watercolor Portrait Of Young Chinese Woman

Here is a portrait in watercolor I did of a young friend.  Her father took a nice picture of her and posted it to social media.

She is a beautiful young lady and it was a pleasure to paint this for them.

The lighting in the photo was from the back and there was a lot of incidental lighting from the sides which did not give a lot of dramatic shadows to work with. This is part of what drew me to the project since it had a lot of challenges with light and tone.

I actually printed the photo from social media and traced the image onto watercolor paper,. since the photo was good quality. Though she is Chinese her skin has a lovely rose hue to it which was easier than I thought would be to render.  I gave a wash of alizarin crimson as a base and then began to work in the middle tones with orange, sienna, and lavender. After the middle tones were laid down I use violet and ultramarine blue for the shadows. There are a lot of places where the cool and light values were mixed together creating subtle value changes, so I did a lot of blending and lifting colors out with clear water and tissue.

The mouth was several hours getting it right there are all the values between the lights and darks the cools and warms. the upper lip had an unusual reflected light on it and the lower lip was more in a shadow than usual.

More hours were spent on the nose, this is one of the areas that had a lot of subtle changes in values.

Normally I have a lot of difficulty with the eyes. She has brown eyes that are almost black so I painted them brown first and then washed black over the brown. The photo does not capture the richness of the results. In some ways, the Asian eye shape is easier to draw but is harder to get the gradual shading

I always do the hair and clothing last and I always make it simpler than it really is.

Watercolor Portrait of Young Chinese Woman

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Watercolor Portrait Of College Girl Daughter Looking up

This is a painting I did of my daughter. It was a picture from one of her social networks.

For some reason, I have a lot of problems photographing my work and getting the colors to show true. The hair is brown with some canary yellow but here the yellow looks kind of green mustard and the brown is not as rich as my painting. The overall tone of the skin is warmer in the original picture.

I did this painting with a lot of thin watery washes adding layers over layers to get the tone, value and the roundness of her features.   I started with alizarin crimson and added yellows on top for the highlights. The shadows were done with violet, lavender and ultramarine blue all washed in with more layers on top of layers. I was constantly lifting color out that was too deep or the wrong hue. Just the face was about a five-hour project. I was using my smallest brushes for most of the time. I spent another hour on the hair, I wish I had thought out the hair more and did something more creative with it than I did.

I normally do the background but here I left it blank just to be different. It really is white and not gray like the photo.

Watercolor Portrait Of Young Woman Lookin Up

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Watercolor Portrait of Young Woman Looking Down

I spent a few days working on this watercolor portrait. It was a very enjoyable project and a very frustrating project at the same time. 

My model is one of my favorite young ladies who is one of the sweetness people I know I was hoping to capture her sweetness in this project.  

The over face turned out well but the photo doesn't do it justice. I began with a wash of light rose and then went over with some senna and violets to get the shading in and the highlights.

The hair in the reference photos I took was a mess. She has beautiful long hair but it was all over her knit shirt.  I should have simplified the hair and edited it with more care to give the picture a greater unity.

I may come back to it later and try to clean up the hair a bit. I'll try lifting some of it out with a brush of clear water and paper towel. Then reintroduce the fix with a fresh application of color. I might use black acrylic or even black gesso to the hair.

Watercolor Portrait of Young Asian Woman With Long Hair.

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Watercolor Of My Daughter In Her Purple Hair Phase

Here is a watercolor portrait of my daughter who has colored the lower half of her hair with purple.

I sketched using a tracing box and a printed image that was taken from a photo she sent me.

The paint was put down in layers starting with the background using a flat wide brush and giving the colors an up and down sweeping texture.

The face was done in washes but I didn't work on the hair and sweater until after I was confident that I had established the facial features and expression. Even though it is my daughter in her purple hair phase I didn't spend too much time on the hair because hair styles are so trendy and such a passing fashion and I do not want someone distracted by it in the future.

After a while I was working all over on the picture letting one area dry while I focused on another. The deep shadows on the face were a problem there is color in the shadow but the shadow dominates so I was afraid the form of her face was getting lost as I worked over the shadows and both added color and lifted out some color. Some places I had to dab the colors in and then lift some out.

Watercolor dries lighter than when it is applied so sometimes I had the values too dark or colors too intense then I had to lift the color out with a brush and some clear water.

I wanted it to look like she was taking form out of some or clouds of color. I do not try to paint for photorealism since so many others and this gives more of a statement.
I hope you enjoyed seeing my work.

I took several breaks and set it aside for a few days at a time eventually finishing it after about three weeks.

Watercolor Portrait of Girl with Purple Hair.

Being my own worst critic even now as I look at it I see little things I would like to tidy up or change. But if I do not say I am done sometime I will never finish.

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