EASY WATERCOLOUR PORTRAITS - TUTORIAL TRYOUTS

This week I really enjoyed working through the Easy Watercolour Portraits tutorial suggested by Kristin Dudish at Tutorial Tryouts every Tuesday.  It was fun from beginning to end, and I was very happy with the results.

  
As it happens, my watercolour portraits also fit right into Jenn's theme for Artist's Play Room for 'Heads and Shoulders', and I have added an extra image at the end specially for APR - a different type of 'Heads and Shoulders' image. 

It took me all morning to find a photograph to use for the tutorial because I spent almost the whole morning looking through the photo boxes for a picture matching the type Elise recommended, and only a moment to choose one when I saw it.  Still, it made an enjoyable and nostalgic morning.

This is a school photo of my daughter, Carol, when she was 8 years old (46 years ago), and apart from the fact that it is a lovely image, the balance of light and shadow is just right for the technique.

Elise gave instructions for using PicMonkey, but it proved very simple in Photoshop.  I scanned the photo into Photoshop and used the Posterise filter, with a reduction on the darker/lighter scale, to make a posterised copy, as in the middle photo.

I then used the Trace Edges filter, as in the third picture on the line-up of three above. I printed the posterised and traced images, but decided that although I liked the effect of Trace Edges, I would trace the outline from the posterised version with tracing paper, as instructed in the tutorial.

As you can see, I simplified the right side a little to make the image clearer, and produced my outline tracing in pencil.  I used a simpler method than the tutorial suggested for transferring my tracing onto watercolour paper.

I turned the page of tracing over and re-drew exactly on the traced lines, as we did when we were children.  Then I flipped the paper back over to the front side and drew over the lines again onto the watercolour paper for the preparatory image.  Doing it this way meant that I was able to repeat the process and use the same tracing for all four of the paintings.

When I looked at the pencil lines on the watercolour paper, I felt they were rather dark, and I erased the traced lines until they were just barely visible.  At least that's what I did on all the others, but forgot to do this for the gold one, as you can see if you look closely.  I think it is worth erasing until there is just a faint outline to guide you.

The gold painting is quite nice, but it's just not the colour I associate with Carol - blue and turquoise seem to be her colours.

One of the things that is really annoying about getting older is the fact that I get a shaky hand, and I think you can see the effect of that on this dark blue version.  I did the whole tutorial in one day, so I was also getting rather tired.   The line around the chin on this one is rather too dark, but I'm pleased with the result.  It's amazing how such a simple approach and speedy painting can produce such a realistic image.

One of the reasons I use Inktense watercolour pencils so much these days is that it helps me to avoid the shaky-hand syndrome.  I wanted to try another painting, and decided I would see how it came out with Pitt artist pen and Inktense pencils.

I'm really pleased with the result, gentle and tender, just right to portray a gentle and tender person.

This has been my favourite tutorial so far, and I'm sure I shall use the technique again.

ARTIST'S PLAY ROOM

Finally an extra 'Head and Shoulders' image for Artist's Play Room.  This is a small sketch in my sketchbook for a painting I am doing - it's been put on one side for quite a while because I was having difficulty with part of it.  Hopefully I will get down to finishing it one day.

I heard a programme on the radio about THE LONG MARCH, an event near the end of WW2.  It affected me so much that I sat down straight away and drew this coloured pencil sketch, with the intention of working it up into a painting.

If you like the idea of making a watercolour portrait, I really do recommend this tutorial.  It meant a lot to me because I was painting the portraits of Carol.  At the moment she is not very well at all, as I wrote about her in my post The Bravest Person I Know a few weeks ago.

Thank you Karen for suggesting the tutorial, and to Elise for her generosity in sharing the technique.