siena

St. Armand watercolor, 30" x 22". 6 hours.

i asked siena to figure model for me and she agreed. i started some studies of siena to prepare, including this portrait.

this painting is the fourth attempt. i tried using diagonal and radiating lines within the format, but i mislaid one or two steps each time and ended up with a distorted drawing. this, the fourth, used a square grid.

i changed her eyes from blue to brown, so that she is made of warm color. the drawing was cut with a carbon pencil, with many erasures, and the st. armand paper would allow paints to bleed, even when the paper was completely dry. this adds to the rough, newsprint quality of the image.