Weekly Face on Weds #5

Well this one was a tricky one. It went through so many changes, quite drastic changes. I really wasn't sure where I was going with the whole piece, and in fact almost gave up on it completely.

I started as ever with a sketch.. so far so good, always with a HB pencil.( Nothing special, pack of 10 from my supermarket)

Then using Daler Rowney paints.. I blocked in .. this really is just that, block colours in the relevant shapes. 

Now to start adding depth .. I added thin washes of lighter colours over the dark base colours. At this point I was still happy with it. 

more thin washes, building it up..it was here I started to lose the plot with it..

because look what happened next, she could have successfully auditioned for a zombie movie at this point. 

  I wasn't loving it at all, and was pretty much at the point of ripping it out of the book.

however, i left it alone for a week or so, and then decided to have one more go at it. This time I used Derwent Coloursoft pencils

I smoothed out the face, and worked on the bow, and felt I could rescue it.. 

Lots more pencil work..

and here she is finished, have to say I really like her now. Totally chuffed that I was able to turn around what really was a disaster, and make it into something fairly presentable. 

I could have not blogged those dreadful stages, but it is important to show you that I have bad days, lots of them, just like everyone else. it is good to show mistakes, and to show when things have been rescued. 

I try and be honest about projects, my feelings about them, and whether I found them difficult or not, it helps nobody to always show a perfect end result. 

if you are joining in leave your link in the comments. 

Darcy x