Wishes portrait in progress 9 - The rhinestone collar

Wishes’ green rhinestone collar finished. The captions tell how it came about. It was not in the original reference photo.

1

In her photo Wishes was wearing a plain black collar. But I saw two dressier collars in other photos Alicia sent. Here are those two photos.

I asked Alicia if she preferred to have one of these on Wishes in the portrait. She said yes.

2

Using Photoshop, I then created two layouts showing each collar added to the original reference photo. I sent the layouts to Alicia. I do that so the client can see what the final result will look like. 

This is the pink rhinestone collar....

Alicia and I both agreed the pink collar was too bright and took attention away from Wishes. Even though I had toned it down, and made the back side of it shadowed to match the lighting in our reference photo. 

3

This is the Photoshop layout showing the black leather collar with green rhinestones and white metal studs. Alicia liked this one. The green will add a bit of additional color to the artwork which is mostly grey, black, and brown. But in the artwork I will tone it down because I don't want it to overpower the importance of Wishes’ face. 

FOR ARTISTS:

What that means is I will reduce the contrast between the lightest and darkest values in her collar. I will portray the green rhinestones as they are in the reference photo, the tiny white highlights and the light and dark greens. But I will make the highlights on the metal studs light grey instead of white, because I want the highlight in Wishes’ eye to be the only white (except for the fabric). All those white studs would overpower the single small white highlight in her eye. So I’ll make them several shades darker….but they will still look like shiny metal studs. And on the leather of the collar I will make the highlights less bright and the dark values less dark. Push both the light and dark values more towards the middle values. (In this pic I’ve already toned it down in Photoshop so I could see how far to push those modifications.)

I don’t want this collar to be the star of the show. The important thing is Wishes’ face.

4

The pencil colors I’m using for the rhinestones. That light grey pencil on the right is what I’m using for the “white” highlights. I don’t want to go anywhere near an actual white, and make the collar decorations “pop” too much. 

5

Wishes’ collar finished. 

It looks fairly prominent, because the black of the collar stands out sharply on the grey paper. But when I get the black coat of her shoulder filled in below the collar, it will blend in nicely, with just the highlights of the studs and rhinestones standing out….but hopefully not too much.  

6

The whole portrait as it looks now. The diamond pattern of the decorations on the collar gives a nice touch that adds to the interest of the portrait. I was a little reluctant to add shiny rhinestones to this soft and muted portrait, but Alicia wanted them…and they have done no harm to the feel of this watchful and introspective portrait. 

“Wishes”

❤️  Commissioned by Alicia McCarthy

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