IsabeauxStudio

Now that the holidays are finally over,  the family has been and gone, and my peak season is finally done,  I can now concentrate on creating again.  Thank goodness.

In my watercolor workshops that I have been doing (roughly one Saturday a month) we have been concentrating on portraits.  As if trying to master watercolor technique was not hard enough!  Admittedly, I am still trying to find my way and trying to develop my style, doing portraits in watercolor threw me another curve ball.

 It has been quite some time since I tried to draw a realistic portrait.  I have been doing stylized fashion illustrations for so long, it was hard to break the habit of elongating the figure and oversimplifying the form.  Figure and portrait drawing skills, completely dusty and dormant from freshman year of college were being dredged up from the dark recesses of my brain.  Slowly the feeling of "a-hah! I remember this..." began to emerge.

 After the portrait workshop I was eager to get home and practice what I learned.  I pulled this photo out because I love the colors of the garden in the background.  Of course, true to my nature, I pull out the HARDEST image I can find to get started.   My pre-portrait workshop attempt was pretty bad,  the figure was not formed right, and it was muddy in color.  I am of course NOT showing you the bad one (but it would clearly illustrate how much I have improved, so maybe I will add it later.)

 My post portrait work shop attempt (#2) was much better because I approached it differently.  I did a lot of preliminary sketches of the figure in order to get the proportion right.  This was a huge improvement in my process as usually I had been too impatient to get "into the color" to be bothered.  These preliminary sketches made a huge difference in the outcome of the piece.

Here is my version of the photo above.  It is titled, "Emily in the Garden of Eden."

Overall it is a big improvement.  Unfortunately it is not the best likeness of Emily (sorry Emily!)  I started with the background, and pretty much completed it before starting on the figure part.  Admittedly I was a little intimidated by applying color to the face.

She is a bit overworked,  but I do like the way the hair came out,  and I am pretty pleased with the background.  A good first attempt.