Now I’m adding the blue and white blanket over Tanner.
Today’s work was to do the fold that is to the left of his face. It was slow going because it's dark where it’s folded over his head, so the colors in that shadowed area are surprising. The light blue stripes on the blanket look almost black there — look at the “top” edge of the blanket to see how light the blue is. I had to figure out the correct colors in the shadowed area.
What color do you think the “white” part of the blanket is in the shadow area? For sure it’s NOT white.
It is actually very close to the paper color. In this pic I’ve used Photoshop to show you the color of the “white” underside (shadowed side) of the blanket. Take a look at that bar of color beside the shadowed “white”. The other end of that bar against the paper color shows that it’s just a shade lighter than the paper. Surprising, huh?
Working on this shadowed section was slow going also because I needed to work very carefully around his whiskers, which were already there as single white pencil strokes. Have to keep pencil points very sharp to detail carefully around the whiskers with dark colors, or it would be all too easy to blot them out.
This is how the whole portrait looks now.
