Mixed media watercolour portrait -
"If I only could..."
My first mixed media watercolour portrait, "If I only could". The ideas and techniques I used whilst listening to Kate Bush's "Running up that hill'.
The inspiration
I had had the name of the photographer who took this photo and the name of the photo scribbled on a piece of paper stuck on my notice board for ages. It is by Azamat Zhanisov and you can find it here on the Unsplash.com website.
When I was invited to participate in an exhibition, the theme of which was "walls", I knew that I wanted to express what I wanted to say with a venture into mixed media and that this photo was the perfect starting point.
I wanted to paint her surrounded by her thoughts. Thoughts that her mind put into her head telling her why she couldn't/shouldn't take a leap of faith and follow a dream. The same thing that our minds instinctively do to all of us when there is fear and risk involved.
You know the ones,
"It's too late",
"I'm too old",
"It's too hard",
"I'll make a fool of myself"....
The leaves would be those words.
The leaves
I wanted to cut the leaves from the pages of books.
But books are such special things and the thought of deliberately damaging one just didn't sit right with me. I ummed and erred for two long days before I actually took scissors to two of them. One in English and one in Italian. I justified doing so because my book in English was already badly water damaged and the Italian one was one of my daughter's set school books that she offered up for the project because it wasn't one she would ever read again.
I searched through their pages to find the kind of snippets of words that would match the thoughts that were going through her mind. Given that the book in English was about a sailing adventure and the one in Italian about the search for an unknown island, they didn't readily jump out at me. But I found them.
I cut each leaf out to match those drawn on my paper.
Apart from the words I wanted visible as her thoughts, I painted each one with a wash of Sepia watercolour pigment.
I creased and molded the leaves into three-dimensional forms and attached each one with a small amount of vinyl glue.
I had no idea whether what I had imaged to do was going to work, so rather than painting the whole portrait and then attach the leaves, I painted only a small part of her face and placed some prepared leaves on the paper.
I wanted to know whether the Sepia colour was going to unite the painted and collage elements. It did. I was happy with the initial effect.
The watercolour materials I used
I painted the portrait with one of my favourite two colour combinations for portraits: Sepia from the Van Gogh range by Royal Talens, and the gorgeous deep warm red of Madder Brown by Schmincke.
The watercolour paper was Fabriano 5 50% cotton 300 gm²/140 lbs cold pressed paper, which is strong enough to take without a problem the small amounts of glue needed to attach the leaves.
I added a touch more red to her hand and then all that was left to do was to carefully remove the masking tape and position her in a passepartout
The finished mixed media watercolour portrait
Then I played with the great Canvy app to give her the perfect natural and neutral frame and place her in a garden room setting.
Starting out in watercolour and want to paint captivating portraits?
Sign-up for my latest tips, secrets, and terrific tutorials to get you through the disappointing phase faster and painting the portraits you want to.