The Lady of the Woods

The Lady of the Woods
A3 420 x 297mm unbranded mount board
Swishy wands:
Liberal applications of Derwent Lightsabres (special edition Lightfast), a Derwent Drawing, smidgeons of Luminance
Ref. Pic: Unsplash

This support, good Ladies and Gents, represents a veritable bargain. I bought several of these mount boards when i saw that Karen Hull uses them in her fabulous book on portraits. This slinky little green number was a joy to work on and also signifies the first time I have done a McDonald's and gone large!

I wanted to have a go at a portrait using my incredibly tasty, swoon worthy Lightfast, and I was somewhat confuzzled that doubling the size from my normal took no extra time to complete. Go figure, work that out Einstein!

This fabulous reference picture was a fun one to try, representing a classical kind of pose with an enigmatic look with the fair lady not quite making direct eye contact. The lighting also reminded me a bit of some of the old masters, not quite Rembrandt lighting, but close.

I changed a lot on it to get the effect i wanted... I wanted to use harmonious colours, with beautiful ultramarine featuring strongly, so the book had to be changed as well as clothing. A lot of artistic licence was applied, adding velour fabric folds and satin linings. I even dabbled with jewellery design as the original necklace and bangle didn't go for me. As if i know, but still, I am an arteeeest!

As always, I took multiple work in progress pics and just as i did once before, i left the eyes until last. It is very unsettling working this way, not my favoured option at all but I did it to get a feel for the new to me surface before i got to less forgiving areas like the eyes.

So all in all, I had a blast with this and enjoyed using the bargain surface very much too. Onto the next now, hopefully will finish that soon as well.

Have a great week all, hope you all manage to find some colour pencil swishing time 😊