Experimental

“Mermaid”

Watercolor, Acrylic

Objectives:

• To lift out lighter values from the watercolor with water and a fine sable brush a la Bernie Fuchs.
• To create luminosity.
• To develop interesting shapes that reflect how bounced light fragments up onto skin.
• To create an underpainting that is tight enough so that I do not have to implore digital to practice resolutions.
• Accepting the idea that a finished sketch can be considered a finish because there is just enough information to lead the viewer in and just enough information left out to make them want to stay in the painting and create their own interpretation on things.
• Compositionally, this figure had to be omitted from the larger piece it was meant to accompany. It felt separate and thematically lacked engagement with the other main figures.
• This was also a trial in mixing media. I had never used both watercolor and acrylic together in this fashion before. The lifting out technique made it difficult to keep the watercolor down in areas that I wanted more opaque. I was working on gessoed illustration board and had to spray fix the watercolor once the values were set and be careful that there was adequate fixative coverage. If not, any minimal amount of water on my acrylic brush would erase the watercolor pigment.