Hi all,
Tonight is the Ice Moon, which is the full moon of February. In Celtic mythology, today is Imbolc, the midpoint between the winter and spring equinoxes. Despite the cold, rainy and dreary weather, I can’t help but look forward to the spring and use this time as a good time to reflect (mostly on my frustrations) with this piece.
I started this piece last week and I am nowhere near satisfied with it. However, I think that it is time to move on and see what I can learn rather than dwell on fixing it.
The first issue here is that the printer I used printed the reference photo in colors of dark red and purple. You might be able to see the comparison between the printer picture and the reference photo below, and yes, it’s striking. Well, that made my initial color selection very tough. I was mixing up dark purples and reds for the skin tone instead of pale and rosy hues. The printer also falsely darkened around her eyes, and this became one of the trickiest parts of the painting – one that I felt I couldn’t seem to get right.
The reason I think this piece looks so funny is because I got the proportions of her face all wrong. I attempted a tilt of her head, and although I got the outline correct, the features themselves did not follow suit; you can see how they sat flatly on the front of her face. The part that I struggled with the most was the mouth. I have had trouble all year trying to paint open and/or smiling mouths. Something about it is really tripping me up and I think I’ll need to practice that in isolation sometime soon. Also, I don’t love the glitter I tried to put on at the end, but at least that part was fun.
One thing I liked was the neck (without the glitter) and the forehead. I think this preserves the brushstroke while also depicting shape and depth.
Very impressive portfolio!
Thank you so much for looking at my work, GDJ!! 🎨🩵🩵