Casey portrait in progress 6 - The skies made me do it

Skies are the reason I started using other mediums in my Colored Pencil art.

There is just no way to make a sky as smooth, or as bright, with pencils. I have used pastel, watercolor, and acrylic, for skies. On colored paper I use an opaque medium (pastel, or acrylic paint) to completely cover the paper color. This sky is watercolor wash (a transparent medium) on white paper.

I masked off the butterfly and the line of trees before I started. They were masked with friskit film, cut carefully with an x-acto knife. I did that so I could do a smooth wash for the sky, using sweeping strokes side to side with a large brush without stopping to paint around the trees. When you slow down to paint around details, the wash dries in places, making the sky blotchy.

The sky is darker at the top, like real skies are. That’s one of the main purposes of a watercolor wash: as I stroked the paintbrush across side to side, I used watercolor more thinned with water toward the bottom. More white paper showing through = lighter color.

I'm using the whole sheet of paper, to give me plenty of room for making those long strokes for the wash. I'll trim it down to the crop marks at the end..

🎨 Prismacolor pencil and watercolor on white Canson Mi-Teintes paper, 15 x 20 inches.

“Casey” (GCHS Ch. Marrics Just In Case With Grand Oaks).

Commissioned by Doug Eicher.

From reference photos taken by Doug and a show photo by Lexi D Photography (Alexandria Darienzo).