Casey portrait in progress 8 - More about colored pencil on an underpainting

Still working on the grass around Casey....

The grass in the upper part of this pic was done with colored pencils on the white paper. Then I added a green watercolor underpainting in the entire lower half of the scene, all around Casey’s body (which is mostly the white paper showing). Look at the watercolor wash on the white paper near the bottom: notice I made two passes with the wash. The first one was too light and too yellow. So I mixed a darker, cooler green and added a second wash, bringing it to the green base color I wanted.

Now I’ve added the grass blades with colored pencil over the underpainting. This close-up shows how I used several shades of green pencils. Lighter greens toward the top, darker greens as I worked downward. I made larger strokes as I went downward: the grass appearing larger in the foreground. As you can see, it didn’t take a lot of pencil strokes to make the impression of grass.

⭐️  If you’re on a phone, zoom in to see detail.

This, and the previous 3 posts in this album, demonstrate why I often use underpainting to create the backgrounds in my portraits.

It saves a lot of work coloring large areas - in this case covering the white paper completely with green pencils.

🎨 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).