Portraits on the go – Ivy

UPDATE:
As you can see I have worked on Ivy’s portrait, not sure what I’ll call it right now, all I can say Aquabord is definitely a new experience. I do really love the look of it and the feel but it has it’s quirks as far as working with it.
Since I haven’t done a portrait in some time (this was practice for a commission) I did make some mistakes in going much too dark, but luckily Aquabord is very easy to remove the watercolor from the surface and retouch areas. I can honestly say that has been my saving grace in learning this new surface. One of my idols, Ali Cavanaugh, does amazing portraits on this surface, unbelievable really. She calls her pieces done on this surface “Modern Frescos”, meaning a painting painted on clay, which these boards are. So quite fitting.

SO I have a commission portrait on my easel this week but since I am a little nervous when it comes to portraits I’ve decided to do one of my daughter at the same time. Maybe as practice 😉 I am really liking the sketch so hopefully the painting comes through. The last painting I did of Ivy I found it came out more cartoonish than I was wanting it to be, but with the latest one of my grandmother I feel I have gotten closer to what I wanted as a finished piece and overall skin tone.
My other commissioned portraiture is unfortunately a surprise for someone’s significant other so I can’t very well go and post progress images of it so this one gives me something to show as I work on both. I’ll update this post as the portrait progresses.

Cheers,
Jason