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Do you ever have one of those days - or weeks - where nothing seems to work out the way you planned? It can be frustrating, even though we know from experience that "this too will pass."

Last week I was working on several small watercolor portraits and not one of them was working for me. Was it a bad batch of paper? Maybe. Was it that I was trying too hard? Probably. Was it a learning curve? Absolutely!

Get a grip.

I finished the pieces I was working on in my studio, for better or worse (mostly for the worst). Some were placed in a drawer in case I want to revisit them someday, others ended up in the trash.

Starting over.

Since I had such bad results with those other pieces, I decided to start again. Beginning at the top left corner, I used my usual coral and gold, but substituted hookers green for my typical blue on the first layer of flesh.

Be fearless.

Despite my previous failures, I did what I always do: I followed my intuition. I glazed the background with alizarin and used more green on the flesh. I was a bit concerned that I had gotten too dark on the forehead, but I felt sure it would work out in the end.

But not reckless.

On my preceding (failed) paintings, I had created blonde hair with what I considered a gaudy gold tone, and I wanted to play it a bit safer on this piece. To that end, I used burnt sienna (which is non-staining) to establish the hair shapes, followed by an allover glaze of a soft neutralized yellow mixture.

More intuition.

I really liked the warm red I applied to the lips, so I added more scarlet lake to the ear, neck, and even the hair. Once I decided her jacket would be blue, I added some of that around the painting as well.

Compare values.

The darker I went in her hair and surrounding areas, the less I was bothered about having gone "too dark" on the forehead. If you trust the process, the values will be worked out in subsequent layers!

Is it finished?

This painting was finished, or so I thought.

Final touches.

After letting the piece sit for several days, I decided it needed a darker background, so I added a few glazes of indigo. Of course I can never make changes in only one area, so I also reinforced some of the darks in her clothing and hair.

It's always good to ask a friend for input, and it was pointed out to me that I had lost the highlight in the model's right eye. I titled the final piece Effortless - which refers to the model's unpretentious beauty, not my process!

This small 10.5" x 9.5" piece took 16 days to complete, from start to finish. You can see the final version at the top of the page.

You start each work not knowing exactly where you're going or where you'll end up. "Art is the highest form of hope," said painter Gerhard Richter. But hope is not about knowing how things will turn out - it is moving forward in the face of uncertainty. It's a way of dealing with uncertainty. ~Austin Kleon

 

Paint Love. Repeat.