Skip to main content

In Her Prime Belly Dancer watercolor step by step

It has been a long time since I posted a demo so I will take this opportunity and share with you my latest commission. This is Maia, her wonderful husband asked me to paint this gorgeous picture of his wife as a surprise for her birthday. Awe isn't he just so sweet. I have known this couple for many years and was so honoured when asked, and in all reality who could pass up such a beautiful model. :D
Step 1: This is the third workup of the line drawing hence the 2 pieces of paper taped together, nothing fancy here. So I waited for a nice bright day taped her to the window and transferred her to my watercolor paper. The hard part is over. I think that probably my most challenging aspect of this project was the fact that I knew this lady and wanted to do her justice.
Stage 2: Lets add color. So in this stage I masked out some key highlights, like the glints of lights from the underskirt and earring, and eyes. The other highlights, like the one on her shoulder I could work around because of the size. I don't like making fluid and try and avoid using it whenever possible. So working with just 3 colors, quin gold, perm red and cobalt blue I layed in the basic patterns of her skin. I will be going back and adding more layers as more of the painting is completed but this gives me a bases in which to judge all other values.
Stage 3: Add some darks. I needed to add some darks to give a some sense as to where I was going. Even with just this tiny part of the painting somewhat completed it really made her come alive.
Stage 4: Building layers. Did you notice the oops that was made when adding her skin earlier? I had to drop her tummy back down under the floating scarf because you would see a hint of her tummy through the scarf. This piece is all about layers and really made me stop and think about the process. Her skin and underskirt would show through the sheer scarf in some places and the background would come through in others.

Stage 6: Folds and fabrics. This piece offered many challenges, the main one was the fabric and the sheer scarf. I needed to find a way to delineate the underskirt from the scarf, add texture and tie in the background. Not a small task. For the scarf and dress colors I used a mix of cobalt blue, cobalt turquoise lt. (this color is slightly granulating and was the perfect choice for just a hint of texture in the scarf), and a touch of paynes grey as I knew I would be using it in the background and needed that color to show through the scarf.
Stage 7: Adding the background. Using a wet into wet technique I applied
the first background layer using paynes grey, alizarin crimson and cobalt blue.
Stage 8: Final touches and done. Now it is all about adding detail and making sure your values and tones are accurate.

The finished piece is 9 * 12 on 140lb CP arches paper
Hope you enjoy :)








Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DIY Crayon costume for Halloween

Halloween is my favorite time of year. We spend weeks getting our yard and home decorated all for the night when the little ghosts and goblins come out to play. ;) B started school this year and within her school, they don't do a Halloween per say, they have an orange and black day. So in order to kill 2 birds with one stone, we decided that she is going to be an orange crayon. So with an old t-shirt and a little black felt fabric, this is what I came up with. I think it turned out Awesome! And the best part is that it was a no-sew project. Supplies needed:  1 t-shirt in the size required. 1 box of orange fabric dye (because they didn't' have any orange t-shirts in her size) 1 wooden spoon 1 large container for dying remnant black fabric. I used black felt because that is what I had on hand. 1 pattern for the Crayola font - I used this one Crayola pattern  and made the size adjustments accordingly when I was printing it out. For the crayon label banding, I just wi
Post a Comment
Read more

Halloween Haunt - DIY Rotting Flesh/ Corpsing prop tutorial

Here is one of the techniques I use to attain the rotting flesh look on cheap plastic dollar store Halloween props.  Supplies you will need: plastic body parts or skeletons cheap plastic wrap - it doesn't matter what brand  heat gun or high-temperature hairdryer wood stain ( I used oak because that is what I had laying around) spray paint ( red and black) craft paint (red, black, dark brown, white, grey and green)   First, wrap your cheap skulls or bones in a few layers of plastic food wrap. It doesn't matter what brand. Then take your heat gun and melt areas away until you get your desired look. Some hairdryers may not be able to get hot enough to do this. Then take your wood stain and start adding a little colour.  Color choices are completely up to you but i used red, flesh, dark brown, black, white, grey. On the skull, I added some black spray paint in the hallows of the eyes to add a little more dimension.  Hope this inspires you to try a new prop id
Post a Comment
Read more

Sailboat at sunset watercolor painting tutorial

Just a quick demo on how I painted this sailboat at sunset. Colors used: Indian Yellow, Napthol Red, Alizarin Crimson, Royal Blue, Burnt Sienna and Brillant Orange and permenant ink First draw out your image and mask off your sun spot - dry. I chose to use ink as a base to this painting applying it both directly and using it as a wash to add some shadows. Next wet the entire sky area. Working around your sun spot start by adding a graduated wash of indian yellow from the bottom to about 3/4 the way up, then add in alizarin crimson, and at the top work in a band of royal blue letting it run down a little. DRY The sky is not holding the weight I need it to so I wen over it again using the same colors and technique. This time adding a band of brilliant orange along the bottom. Looking better but still not quite there. So lets dry and move on to another area so that I can come back and judge the values. The sails were added using a mix of BS, brilliant orange and indian yellow. D
Post a Comment
Read more