Process: New Watercolor Portraits

As far as the learning curve with watercolors, I feel like I’m def near a peak.  Now, when I make mistakes, I think “Oooooh shoot, I knew that would happen!”

I’m focusing more on tricks of memory than discovery.  Forgetting how to do something is a great way to figure out how to do something else.

In some versions of my watercolor portraits I’ve used different color pens and crayons.  The pens bleed with the water for a cool effect.  The crayons add dimension.  Initially the portraits were paired with a word search.  In this newest batch, I used ball point pen and watercolors only.  I asked people to write down three words on a page of my notebook before/after I took a source photo of them.  Some of these are life drawings.  Those might be obvious.

So with these, I start with pen, go to watercolor, let it dry, then add more pen over it.  Here are a few of the line drawings:

With watercolors I need to go with my gut and not overthink complicating the colors.  The colors will blend and move with water [something I need to remind myself of each portrait I do].  It might be best if I get a little thicker paper, though mix media notebooks have been sufficient.  These are drawn on 5.5 x 8 inch paper.

These are all scanned images.  I edited saturation and contrast in Photoshop.  The portraits are still intact in different notebooks.  I have torn out over 100 of my watercolor portraits.  They’re displayed at Opodz in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles.  The show is up through mid November, 2016!  Closing reception to be announced!  Check it out!

(Above Photo: Sasha Ross Photography)

You Can Find Me…

Facebook: @LornaAlkanaArt and @LAWordSalon and @AffectComic
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I update my Exhibition Page with events and galleries Lorna Alkana Art is featured in.
Check out the Disclosure Page to see a chronological evolution of my blog and art.

I post twice a week in two sorts of ways:  I share new art/discussions about the process of works in progress, and I post segments with Comic Lorna in my audiobio comic series called, Affect.