This started out in pieces as random sketches in a notebook. I decided to patch them together in one composition, which I then transferred onto good paper by way of my ghetto lightbox. (My acrylic palette balanced upon a lamp which was sitting on the floor).
Unfortunately, I had a mishap with the first attempt that I will be blaming entirely on the miskit, and not my impetuousness. After a few days, I decided to give the project another go. I transferred the drawing again in pencil, and then redrew my final lines in ink.
After cleaning up the remaining pencil marks, I went in with a small, round brush and laid in thin washes of Speedball, Super Black India Ink (waterproof). Typically, I'm a graphite girl. I like to get my values from pencil shading before spraying with a fixative and then adding in color, but I thought I'd try something new.
The last step was to add washes of watercolor over the values I had created with the ink. I think the next time I try this, I'm going to use a different paper. The softness of this brand didn't hold up very well to all of the harassment. I touched up a few highlight areas with white acrylic paint in the end.
The piece is roughly 6 1/8" x 8 1/4" with a paper/white border of about an inch all of the way around.
I look forward to playing around with this process more when I have time around commission work, and I'll do my best to post about it along the way.
Cheers!
