Well I couldn't resist tweaking and playing around with this today instead of doing all the chores I'd planned
I lifted out some dark colour from his beard with Blu Tack and made some more indentations before reapplying the darks. I then tried to enhance some of the whiter areas of whiskers with my trusty Staedtler Lumocolour glasochrom white pencil which normally works well over darker coloured pencil colours but this time all it did was pick up the underlying black/blues and I ended up with some greasy grey sections in the beard which have been difficult to lift/erase.
I'll definitely not do any more to him/his beard till we're back from Fuerte and now I really must get some housework done, dinner cooked and bags packed.
As always, we only travel with hand luggage as we have clothes and a house full of our own items awaiting us. But we are taking half a dozen packs of Quorn chicken chunks out for a veggie friend (they are so expensive out there), a dozen paperbacks bought from charity shops - I read a lot when relaxing by our pool and can't always rely on finding decent books in the bars that do book-swaps, birthday cards for 3 friends who have birthdays out there in June and various other sundry items. We have a 6am flight so need to leave home around 2.30am so I really need to get my backside into gear otherwise house-sitter and her boyfriend will be here and I won't be ready for them.
I lifted out some dark colour from his beard with Blu Tack and made some more indentations before reapplying the darks. I then tried to enhance some of the whiter areas of whiskers with my trusty Staedtler Lumocolour glasochrom white pencil which normally works well over darker coloured pencil colours but this time all it did was pick up the underlying black/blues and I ended up with some greasy grey sections in the beard which have been difficult to lift/erase.
I'll definitely not do any more to him/his beard till we're back from Fuerte and now I really must get some housework done, dinner cooked and bags packed.
As always, we only travel with hand luggage as we have clothes and a house full of our own items awaiting us. But we are taking half a dozen packs of Quorn chicken chunks out for a veggie friend (they are so expensive out there), a dozen paperbacks bought from charity shops - I read a lot when relaxing by our pool and can't always rely on finding decent books in the bars that do book-swaps, birthday cards for 3 friends who have birthdays out there in June and various other sundry items. We have a 6am flight so need to leave home around 2.30am so I really need to get my backside into gear otherwise house-sitter and her boyfriend will be here and I won't be ready for them.
I don't see anything wrong with the beard color - if it's just that it's not like the ref photo, then don't worry about it. I do like the light eyes against that mahogany skin tone and the beard goes right along with it too. Can you leave it until the clothing is done then decide?
ReplyDeleteJust had a thought - can you erase/BlueTac the beard so it's where you want to re-do then spray with a fixative to help block the color migration?
ReplyDeleteI think I may have applied too much colour to be able to get back to white Jan ... I did block off the picture just exposing the beard and gave it a light spray of fixative before using the white Lumocolor pencil but that brand is much waxier than the Polychromos and I think the two don't like each other very much!
ReplyDeleteI'll probably be happy to leave his beard darker - as you say, it doesn't have to match my ref as its not a commission piece so I'll just play with it and see what happens. Its all a learning curve although I'd prefer not to spoil it as the pencils/papers/time are quite expensive!
How about you? Have you lined up your next painting? Look forward to seeing what you work on next.
Hmmmm and looking at the picture again tonight it seems to have picked up a pink hue - so very difficult to get good photos of artwork and consistent colours in the WIP posts
ReplyDeleteI love what you're doing with his beard Sue! You're amazing....it looks very natural and since you're going away it will be Set aside so when you come home you can see it with fresh eyes! By the way when I erase (pencils). I use a gummy eraser that I have for pastels and it basically lifts not erase.... Enjoy your time away....stay safe!!
ReplyDeleteYou Are always drawing such beautiful portraits of people 😊
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting Hilda. I use Blu Tack to lift colour (which I guess might be like your 'gummy eraser' but it doesn't always allow you to go back to white paper of course.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lene ... animals are still my favourite subject but somehow I seem to have got on a roll with the human portraits ...