WOYWW and Paint Party Friday Dec 21-23rd

I am combining my WOYWW and Paint Party Friday Posts this week because Friday is my Birthday and I'll be out enjoying the day having fun.  


First a painting; recently I saw a You Tube video by a 15 year old girl that had been bullied since 2nd Grade. It was heart wrenching to hear this child had already attempted suicide 3 times.  It seems she has found her way for now but the video left me thinking about this very real issue. 


For Paint Party Friday hosted by the fabulous Kristin and Eva, a watercolor inspired by her story,  I've titled it "You Don't See Me"

and this is a photo of my studio table  on Wednesday for the most wonderful Julia's at Stamping Grounds  What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday WOYWW.   As you can see I am in the process of choosing papers to create the adorable Mr. Henrie.  

Some of you wanted to see stages of my project so here you see I carefully choice a variety of handmade papers in Henries colors, keeping this life size photo present to insure I'm making good matches.

I always create eyes and noses first as I think they may be the most important part of catching a dogs personality, if the eyes aren't right then no matter how hard you try it's difficult to pull off a realistic portrait.  Henrie has very liquidy eyes so after choosing the papers in the colors I wanted I pulled out some Crystal Lacquer to give them that shiny youthful appearance. I use a copic sketch marker to darken the deep brown paper because it wasn't quite dark enough for an exact match.  I also use a little white gel pen to put the light reflection in his eye.

Checking the eye I created for Henrie's portrait against his picture.

Next I take the eye I've created and test place it against his portrait to see if I've pulled off the right shape and colors.  I'm pretty happy with the eye I created for Henrie it almost blends into the picture that the client has provided so now I know it will work great as part of the portrait I'm creating of Henrie.  Now I'll set that eye aside and start working on his other eye. 


If you'd like to see more of my process or make me really happy on my birthday come "like" me facebook studio page where I keep my work in progress pictures and updates.