Peyton (Re)play

Posted by moonminded on June 25, 2014 in Books, Fashion, Portraits | Leave a comment

After finishing this pencil outline a month ago, I spent all of my early-morning-one-hour-pre-work-sessions struggling with another Romare Bearden piece, Circe, 1977. I think I now understand why it took me over two weeks despite the fact that it’s all flat shapes that comprise the female form, but I’ll start painting and posting that soon. June 21st -24th I started mixing paints and practicing washes that I thought would  emulate the Elizabeth Peyton portrait, Sarah, 2002.

• Image 1:  Skin tone attempt! I used a blend of alizarin crimson and raw siena. 1st pass = pink like a pork chop! 2nd pass = the silly putty of a Barbie Doll. Still, I wouldn’t have gotten that far without the suggestion from Moira Clinch’s The Watercolor Painter’s Pocket Palette.
• Image 2: Hey, I watched a video on color theory, why not? (Note to self: video necessary, but insufficient.) In Sarah, 2002, there is a lot of red and my figure’s lips will also be scarlet lake eventually. I’ve only been exposed to underpainting in a continuing education oil painting class several years ago at PNCA, by Jerry Sumpter, who was wonderful. I’m an online-learning junkie and member of Lynda.c0m, and they’re getting more fine art tutorials. Mary Jane Begin’s are excellent. My hope is that the red will “vibrate” off of the green in some yet unknown way …
• Image 3: Trying to lay in shadows with cobalt and neutral tint; seriously messed up! Then thought, the paper can’t handle more water and scrubbing; I’ll just make a purple rectangle like a shadow from a window or something… NO.
• Image 4: The paper did take a little more water and scrubbing but you can see how crummy the paint is and how poorly the paper has been treated by first erasing, and now color experiments.

I plan to finish it with color pencil and may try to use a solvent-over-pecncil technique to get a flowy effect. I like her shirt and shorts so far… It’s all about the journey, right?