Wishes portrait in progress 1 - A very challenging piece

Wishes' portrait will be a challenging artwork. It’s not a complex piece, but it is a challenging one because of the values. (How light or dark a color is.) This portrait actually has very little color in it. The composition is simple and straightforward. The values are what make it difficult. 

This is the photo that Alicia loved the most of Wishes. I’ll explain what makes this so difficult to capture.

You might think at first what makes this piece challenging is that it’s so dark. And that’s true: the values of Wishes and the value of the blanket behind her barely differ from each other. It’s not like portraying a black dog on a white background. I will be portraying a dark grey dog on a dark grey background. 

But that’s not what makes it so hard. What makes this piece challenging is that the grey background is light grey on the left (not counting the white sunlight on the fabric), transitioning gradually to darkest grey on the right. That’s what gives the hazy light effect, the soft light coming in from a window on the left. And if that was the only problem, I’d create a light-to-dark background, and do a black dog on it. But what really makes this challenging is that the values of Wishes also transition from light grey on her nose, to darkest grey (not quite black) on her shoulder on the right. 

To your eye it looks like her nose is very dark grey, because we “know” she is a black dog with a black nose. Later I’ll show you how light a grey her nose really is. The hazy lighting effect has to transition gradually across Wishes too, just as it does across the background, from left to right. 

How to do this with colored pencil?

It's not a piece for beginners.

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The first thing I did was decide what paper color to work on. I chose Canson’s “Dark Grey”. It’s the same value as the background above Wishes’ forehead. That’s the predominant value in the piece. 

Then I spent a couple days identifying the values with Photoshop. This shows my Photoshop layout: Alicia’s photo of Wishes on the paper color I plan to use, with the background greys pulled out so I can see them: See exactly what shades of grey those are, on my base color of the “Dark Grey” paper. 

So far this is all just in the computer. I knew how challenging this piece was by the number of hours I spent trying to thoroughly understand the values using the tools in Photoshop. There were messier layouts than this before I created this simple “road map”. 

Once I understand what I have to achieve, I plan my strategy with art materials. 

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Whenever I start a new artwork, I plan a "strategy". Because of the materials I use, certain steps have to be done in certain orders. That varies with each artwork, there is no set formula, because each artwork is unique, and my materials are used in different ways depending on what the image calls for. 

This album shows the steps I started with, to capture those challenging values in Wishes portrait. 

I plan to do a white watercolor wash across the dark paper from left to right, to capture that transition from pale grey to dark grey, the soft lighting coming from the left. But first I’m putting down white pencil where there are highlights on the blanket. I’ll explain why….

Here is a pic I took in the studio, with Wishes’ photo on the monitor to guide me. 

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I dug through my bucket of pencil stubs to find the White ones. Since they are too short for my electric pencil sharpener, I used a utility knife too expose more of the white core so I can get more out of them. I don't need a sharp point for what I'm doing. I don't WANT a sharp point. I want a flat, dull point for making broad pencil strokes.

In this picture you can see two of my "pencil extenders", one with a pencil stub in it. Pencil extenders are extremely handy for getting the maximum life out of expensive art pencils, when they’re too short to hold comfortably.

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I’ve now completed the white pencil work. As you can see, I put in the highlights from sunlight on the fabric, and marked the folds for some of the other fabric under Wishes with light grey pencils. And I’ve added the highlights and outlines on Wishes’ face and front legs. 

Except for the little bits of color that I had to include on the highlighted edge of Wishes’ face, I am working only with white pencils. There is a reason for that. My first step for this piece is to do a watercolor wash of white paint from the left edge of the image, fading out as it goes toward the right. That will give me that transition of values all the way across the piece from pale grey at the left to the dark grey paper on the right. But before I could do that “first” step, I had to know where to fade that transition. (Partway across Wishes’ face.) So I had to put in the pencil outlines for the whole portrait to know where to put the wash of white paint. And because the white paint will be thicker on the left, it will be hard to get really solid pencil over it, pressing hard to get solid pure white. But if I put solid white pencil down as heavily as I can (with those sturdy little white pencil stubs) on the virgin paper, going over the top of it with white watercolor won’t change any pencil colors. White watercolor over white pencil will only make the white more pure. So I only used white pencil. Any other colors I might have used to start that transition across the piece, such as light grey, will be changed when I put white paint over them. But for the white pencil, I WANT the white paint to make it even whiter. Colored pencil artists probably know that it’s not possible to get a true white with pencils on dark paper. The white paint over it will get me there though.

That shows the whole sheet of Canson paper (20 x 26 inches) with the 16 x 20 crop lines marked out, the size Alicia ordered. At the end, if it looks good, I’ll give Alicia the option to keep the entire sheet as part of the artwork, or have me trim it down to just the 16 x 20 image. 

I always work on the full sheet and trim it down at the end. Sometimes the image looks cool “floating” in the center of the larger paper. Canson Mi-Teintes is a beautiful paper. 

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In this closeup you can see my outline drawing, done with pencil colors similar to the areas I’ll be filling in — light grey, and orange pencils for Wishes’ lighter highlights and rust markings, green pencil to mark the green rhinestones on her collar. I use appropriate colors for my outline drawings so I don’t pollute the pencil colors I’ll be adding later by doing black outlines. 

The highlights on the front of Wishes’ face are the beginnings of her portrayal. Why did I do that step now, before the watercolor wash is put in? Because the light wash of white paint will cover and hide those very faint outlines I’ve made on her lower face. This gives me a road map, not only for the colored pencil work I will do later for her portrait, but also to guide where to fade out the watercolor wash going from left to right. I intend to fade the wash completely out about halfway up her face (where her muzzle meets her eyes). 

Part of the strategy I thought out in advance. When working with mixed media, figuring out which steps to do in what order.

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Painting day. 

I’m using acrylic paint thinned with water (like a watercolor wash) to do the light coming in the window on the left. I can get that hazy light effect more smoothly with a wash than trying to do it with colored pencils, where it’s hard not to have visible pencil strokes. Here’s a pic I took in the studio today. The reference photo of Wishes is on the monitor. The tray with 4 wells to the right of the artwork has 4 mixtures of paint. They all look white, but each one has more water than the last, so it’s more transparent. That’s how I get a smooth gradation of wash that has more white paint in it on the left where the light is brighter, to thinner and thinner mixtures (more water, less white paint) as I go toward the right, where it fades out midway up Wishes’ muzzle. That gives a nice effect of hazy light. I also used the white wash on the blanket below her, fading to darker (thinner wash) toward the bottom right corner. 

I have the 16 x 20 taped off with painter’s tape (the blue tape) and aluminum foil to cover the outer borders of the full sheet of paper. After I pull the tape off, the image will be in the center of the dark grey paper. As you can see, I’m using some really big brushes to do the wash. The sponge (green sponge) is to wet the left side of the paper before I put down the wash, so it flows more smoothly on the paper. This paper is made for colored pencils and pastels, it’s not a watercolor paper. So it doesn’t really take watercolor washes as smoothly as watercolor paper would. The paper is too absorbent and the paint doesn’t flow easily on it. But over the years I’ve learned a few tricks to get closer to the effect I want. 

Wishes’ folded front paws and back leg are covered with masking film (adhesive translucent film) that I cut with an x-acto knife to meet the edge of the blanket below her, so I can do that smooth wash without getting any of the white wash on her paws and legs. I’ll peel that up when I take off the blue painter’s tape. 

I’m also going to do a thin wash of black on the right side of the image, where the lighting fades more into darkness. Just to darken the grey paper a bit more on the right. (Wishes will be dense black so she will stand out from that.)

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The next day I did the same thing with a wash of black paint, darkening the right side of the scene.

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Here it is with the tape removed. Now I have my values for the background. Those values will dictate the values I use for Wishes herself.

Monitor is shut down for the day, paintbrushes cleaned up. Paper has to dry overnight. 

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As you can see, the paper is buckled from being wet. This paper is not made to handle watercolor washes. I have a process for flattening it, by wetting the entire back of the paper and then pressing it under weights for 48 hours. It’s difficult to work with pencil going over those hills and valleys, compared to a totally flat piece of paper. Hard to get smooth pencil strokes.

I don’t enjoy mixing and using paint, but I love working with colored pencil. I don’t have confidence with paint. I have total confidence in my abilities with colored pencils. 

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This is how the whole piece looks now. Wishes is already present on the paper, because of the colored pencil work I did before creating the wash across the background - values that will dictate everything I put on top of them with colored pencil. 

Because of those initial colored pencil highlights and outlines, now I can clearly see where to start working on her. 

And the fabric is 99% finished. Other than the initial white pencil highlights (pic 5 in this album), the white wash did all the work on the fabric. 

🎨 Prismacolor pencil and acrylic wash on “Dark Grey” Canson Mi-Teintes paper, 20 x 26 inches.

Commissioned by Alicia McCarthy.