Model Portrait

Last weekend the Guardian colour mag had a lovely cover photo of a beautiful model with fantastic hair. I was so taken with it I decided to try and paint her. Unfortunately due to copyright restrictions I can't show the original photograph so you'll have to use your imagination!

Stage 1 & 2. The drawing and first try at the features.

Hair (!), face and lower area.

THE MODEL! Waterford 16" x 12" Not



She has quite dark skin and striking eyes. As for the hair. Wow! The hair was painted mainly with a combination of Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue mixed partly on the paper. There is a little Burnt Umber, Cerulean Blue and Ultramarine Violet (Rowney PV15) plus some Viridian (Rowney), but the main colours are various mixes of the Burnt Sienna/Ulramarine Blue combination.  The face colour is a mixture of Cadmium Red Light, Yellow Ochre, Quinacridone Gold (PO49) and Quinacridone Rust (Graham PO48). with Ultramarine and Cerulean to darken. The colours in the dress are Ultramarine Violet and Cerulean, heavily diluted. Also small touches of Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna. I used mainly two brushes. The Isabey Size 6 retractable for the features and Rosemary Size9 Series 33 Kolinsky for most of the rest. I also used a long-handled No 4 W & N Cirrus. Comments welcome.