Now, it was never my intention to do perfect likenesses or anything like that (I know my limitations). I just wanted to get the poses down and an impression of the clothes. I've never really done clothes in watercolor before so I found it quite challenging.
After those first two were done I did an experiment on a collaged background, just to see how scrapbook papers would affect the watercolor. Well, it was not easy to paint with watercolor, it reminded me a little of the moleskine sketchbooks, the paper is beautiful, but it almost resists watercolor. Still, it was interesting to try it and see if I could make it work. I think I did okay.
After that I really wanted to do a close up of a face. Again it wasn't my intention to do a perfect likeness, I just wanted to get the shape of a face as a reference for doing my own thing. First I did some writing and stamping and collaged the background with tissue papers and then I drew a face and covered it with gesso, so the papers wouldn't shine through too much.
It was an experiment again, this time to see how watercolor works on gesso. As one may expect it's not great, you need an absorbent ground for watercolor and gesso is anything but. Still, that made it extra challenging to try and get a reasonable result anyway.
I don't think I'll be doing watercolor on gesso again, but I do like how this picture turned out. It's a bit grungy and rough around the edges. You can see how the gesso resisted the watercolor. It did also make me curious about aborbent ground that are intended for watercolor and other wet media. If any of you have any experience with it and can recommend a brand I would love to hear about it.
And that concludes part two of my mailorder catalogue fun. More on Friday! Have a good Wednesday!