After working on my portrait of Higgy, I thought that separate practise of eyes, noses and mouths might help me create a living face. The medium is watercolour pencils, since I can use them in any room in the house. There is also the possibility that they would militate against being too detailed. My collection is for landscapes so I have a limited choice and that may be a good thing as well. So here are some of them.
These are all taken from photographs, since the only model I have at present is me, and there is a limit to how long I want to look at me, even when in analytical mode.
The colouring is crude since I haven’t used the pencils enough to get the measure of them. Number three looks like two different people, or a fellow with a slowly closing black eye! But what I have learnt is that I usually try to put in too much detail and that life comes not from micro-accuracy, but from a few well observed shapes. I have promised myself to try again in watercolour paint, and in oils, too.
It’s quite the adventure, with a limited selection of colours to play with, isn’t it!