Fine Art By Cady Driver: Step by Step 2 Subject Portrait

An old friend that I went to high school with posted this photo on Facebook of her daughters.....it was simply a sweet and inspiring photo to paint! This post might have a lot of pics in it, but it'll show you just how many washes go onto a watercolor portrait....CRAZY amount of washes...at least for me...the attention-span-of-a-gnat artist who likes to paint QUICKLY.

Light LIGHT washes are best with portraiture...then you can get smooth skin tones and such.

Shading in the planes of the face with violet and a touch of vandyke brown...just a touch. Permanent rose and a cool yellow warm up the skin tones.

Study your photograph carefully for even the slightest color changes and shades...and never leave the white of the eyes white...always wash them with a light light blue.

The baby had blue eyes and I used mostly Payne's gray for her eyes.

Adding the tree trunk and the branch....there were some buildings behind the girls, but I was worried about the portrait being too busy.....hmmmm...

Here, I'm completely messing up the background...oy....too many branches and the building was distracting. Now's the time to PANIC! Let's scrub this out and do greenery instead. My paper is buckling now and I need to re-tape it.

First wash of background greenery

I wasn't happy with this wash either....let's do another wash.

Ahhh, much better....while this wash was still wet, I worked in the small circles and dabbed them with a tissue to create a sun-dappled look. Remember to soften around hairlines with water and a tissue to avoid hard lines.