Wishes portrait in progress 11 - Big dark shapes

The lighting from the window on Wishes’ chest is finished. And her feet and forearm are finished. 

Now I have a lot of big dark shapes left to do. In values that are very close to one another.

This is challenging in a different way than the details of a face. Colored pencils are not the easiest medium to get large areas of color that blend smoothly into one another without showing pencil strokes.

I have finished adding all the white highlights on the folds of fabric. Most of that was done with the white wash way back at the beginning. I’ve added a bit more with white and light-grey pencils, but not much pencil work was needed. I was surprised and pleased how well that white acrylic wash rendered the fabric. 

The grey paper was taped off with painter’s tape to do the white wash. This pic shows the bottom and right edge where the tape was. I will finish Wishes’ body up to that right edge, with pencils. 

“Wishes”

❤️  Commissioned by Alicia McCarthy

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