Painting Outside Perfect

Wow, where did January go? I have been painting almost daily and doing some larger works too and revisiting Encaustics! Watercolor is where I began and I go back to it like seeing an old friend…so January was full of those. I especially love using a Stabilo pencil with water – magic happens!!

While sketching, I pushed myself to draw outside the “perfect” features of a woman’s face. To tell the whole truth, I was actually getting tired of striving for “perfect”. So, I elongated this woman’s nose quite a bit and made her eyes more expressive. Look at that mole! I loved her in the sketch, so decided to make a large, 18×24 canvas of her …mostly so I could go crazy with color! And I did.

I started “Annabelle” with ephemera papers, adding marks and color. I sketched her on the canvas and played with some color leaving her to dry while I went out to eat.

We chose a Chinese restaurant which was auspicious. I received a wonderful fortune and couldn’t resist adding that to her background the next day. The fortune says “We can not change the wind, but we can adjust the sails”. Since I had originally adjusted her from a “perfect” face, I felt the sentiment belonged to this portrait.

As a last bit of excitement, I added a transparent red oil paint over her background and complexion. What a wonderful way to make her skin look like antique porcelain. The transparent oils really add a deep, saturated color and also added a vintage feel overall. If applied very, very thinly over acrylic, it works! I will use this technique again. SOLD!

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