Portrait Class Watercolor Painting

This portrait was painted during the last meeting of my portrait workshop at the Art Students League of Denver. The model was a delightful girl with big eyes and a very light complexion. One of the students set the pose and having the models hand casually pressed against her cheek made the pose more interesting and challenging. As I’m typing this the portrait looked a little washed out until I tipped my computer screen back. I had a limited time of less than two hours for the drawing and painting but once I started working I forgot about the time. I was rather far from the model so I had to adjust the drawing several time before I was satisfied and could start painting. In watercolor you typically don’t use white paint but rather leave the white of the paper. That sounds so simple but it means you really have to plan ahead and preserve the “whites” as you are painting. If you study this portrait, you can see that the center of the models forehead, her left cheek, the left side of her nose and down across her mouth and around her chin are all white paper. Where I did use paint it was important to have a workable combination of hard and soft edges to create modeling and volume. I love portrait painting in watercolor and the Art Students League of Denver is a wonderful place to work from live models.