Work In Progress

Gessoed Ground~

'Little House' on prepped board. 8 x 7 inches

I'm in the Summer Class Harold Walkup, NWS is running in Portland for 6 weeks. Our assignment yesterday was to coat a sheet of watercolor paper or an old Painting with gesso, create some scratchy texture with a comb or grout spreader, and paint watercolor. I did a small practice one in class based on a landscape(above) and later last night I drew out a figure and started working some shapes and values. It's pretty easy to make corrections with a wet sponge and tissue.
Stage one (below) I have gotten in the habit of placing skin tones first. I am working from a desaturated photo I took a couple years ago. I'm thinking a lot about values as this layer progresses.

I finished last night at this state, pretty rough but getting some values and detail established will help me make some decisions later. I am really liking this surface because I am forced to use more paint and I get a different look than I expect after the strokes dry.....don't forget the easy corrections! I will work on this a little more today and take it to my critique group tonight and see what they think. Thanks for taking a look and taking the the time to comment. ~ Carrie

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