WOYWW #439~ One Eyed Art: Learning

Ever since my left eye began to malfunction 2 months ago, I've been too scared to try anything too challenging. That would include learning how to improve my work on faces.

I was afraid of failure. I tend to be, anyway. It can really reduce morale to have something not work out when life's a bit rougher than normal for a while, can't it?  Why try anything difficult that I know I don't have the proper skills to handle during such a difficult time?

For more WOYWW fun, please follow this link HERE to today's blogpost at host Julia Dunnit's blog.

Well, Meri made me do it! I mean, of course, Meri of The Meri Atelier. She didn't know that's what she was doing at the time, though. She has a real talent for doing both people and landscapes as well as mixed media, collage, journaling - you name it! I find it very inspiring to watch her make her art. I always learn when I watch her videos.

But where she really got to me was with her Inktober 2017 Art Journal. I'll include her video at the bottom of this post. In that lovely journal are hand drawn and inked/painted portraits of unknown children from vintage photos. Simply stunning work! I was hooked on portraits again.

I chose something almost at random. It was in a book on my windowsill. The original painting that I attempted to copy is by Dutch artist, van Dyck. The man's name was Cornelis van der Geest.

Despite the many wrinkles, I found that untreated plain brown paper can take gouache paint fairly well as long as it's layered on slowly and without too damp a brush. I began first by using white gouache in the 2 bottom layers, then  tinted more white gouache using watercolors for more layers to keep the paint opaque over the brown paper. I needed to smear and smoosh the gouache so that it would thin in places and not be too heavy at first. I wanted the brown of the wrinkly page to peep through, a bit like underpainting. (I have never tried to do underpainting) The page's wrinkles drove me a bit batty, but really, it's the current problems with my eyesight that challenged me more, especially as to perspective. For the background, I used a wash of Inktense Indian Ink.

Critiquing the Results

I'm not pleased with the skin tones. I'm too inexperienced to get those right yet. I left my comfort zone on this project. I did not get my copy real enough to suit me, even when I do kinda like parts of how the man's ruff turned out. Fabric's one thing, but faces are much more difficult for me to attempt. All the same, I've decided to try a new face every once in a while, just as a way to keep my hand in. 

My technique needs lots of help along with lots of practice if 

I'm to improve at all. Too late to improve the set of the eyes on this attempt!

Next up? Maybe somebody famous such as Shakespeare. No guts, no glory new messes! 

Please forgive me for not responding to you promptly. This post took a lot longer for me to type than is normal for me. It takes days for me to prepare ahead for each WOYWW these days. I am still too slow to keep up or to have enough time to leave comments at every desker's blog. The eye problem hasn't made things any easier. I do hope to be allowed to at least peep at people's pictures so that I might get an idea as to what they've been up to lately.

Happy WOYWW to all my fellow deskers!

As promised, here is Meri's lovely Inktober 2017 video.