A Little Color

Rebecca and Doll
8x10 Mixed Media

The process: Last night I just felt like doing something with color for a change. The garden, girl, doll and bird bath are all from separate references that I digitally put together to create this scene. This is acrylic paint on acrylic canvas paper with some colored pencil overlay. It didn't turn out the way I'd anticipated, but the whole point of this piece was to do a little "experimenting".

What I learned: I tried underpainting with a red first, hoping it would bring out the greens. It just didn't work out very well on the acrylic paper. The paper is just too textured and the underpainting showed through too much. Also, the heavy texture was not friendly to colored pencils and did not allow for fine details. If I had used Strathmore or Crescent illustration board or watercolor paper, I'd say this would have turned out much better.

Final thought: Since my favored technique is realism using graphite, this was a step outside of my comfort zone. I think I'm going to need a lot more practice doing illustrative type work, especially since one of my goals is to eventually write and illustrate a children's book. I really liked the concept for this painting and will probably revisit it again using a different technique, or at least a different paper!