watercolor... watercolour...

All of a sudden I find myself with lots of British, Australian and Canadian friends and I absolutely love adding a 'u' to the word color.  It looks so much more elegant.  ;-)  If an American does it, does it look dorky?  Probably.


So I've been doing the Suzi Blu portraits class online.  Enjoying her, but still have a LONG way to go.  Online courses take a self-discipline that I lack greatly.  I'm way too distracted by email, facebook and my message boards... I began by just sketching the faces, then trying to learn to colo'u'r them in.  <giggling>  I'm supposed to use colored pencils, but absolutely hated the look of that.  I preferred them black and white over the color.

But then I watched a free youtube video using watercolor pencils... and fell in love.  (I fall in love very easily, don't I?)  So of course that meant a trip to Michaels, coupon in hand... and filled a basket with watercolor pencils, and papers and paints and yada yada yada and LET'S NOT tell HB about all this, ok?  Our little secret?????? OK???????

And when I got home I set myself up on the deck in the sun and played.  Well, the first girl didn't turn out - I turned her face bright yellow.  I'm not good enough yet to know how to make that work - so she'll just be my 'practice what color this is' sheet.  Watercolor pencils are a tricky sort.  They try to fool you, looking all flesh tone and stuff... and then turning out to be bright yellow.

So here are some shots of my progression since starting the class... now keep in mind, the first shots are true Suzi Blu style faces - a bit alien looking.  But they grow on you.  It's all about the spacing and measuring distances and such...

Thanks for looking! (and not making fun of me)

This is one of my girls colored in with regular pencil - I just don't LIKE it.  I stopped after doing her hair, eyes and lips - forget shading the face - I was DONE with that.

And here is the same type of girl done with watercolor pencils.  I have a lot to learn with shading, but it's much funner (is that a word?) to work with than just regular pencils.  I'm still loving just sketching with graphite... I love the depth it gives you.