Kadie still developing

I removed the masking fluid from her hair, and begin to soften some of those hard edges, as well as add some warmer hues to some of the shadows within her hair.

I also began the first washes over her hand, and added a little more definition to her mouth and teeth.

With the addition of the shirt striping I think the strong visual elements are beginning to balance one another.

Kadie continues

See, now with the darker shadows developing under her chin and within her face, the reds feel more balanced. I used a lot of drybrushing on her face to smoothly blend the facial features. With children, it's very easy to make them look unnaturally older by creating harder edged lines in the face.

The addition of the green sunglasses also complements the strong reds and balances the color elements.

Here it looks like she's had a sunburn, but I wanted to warm up her face, particularly her cheeks, before adding the cooler shadow elements.


The blue in her hair is actually masking fluid. I wanted to reserve some of the highlights and wispy edges of her hair.

Painting begins

These are early steps in the painting. Forgive me for the distortion caused by my point and shoot digital camera. Some of the photos have a fisheye distortion, and all are lit poorly.

I decided to establish the darkest values first, a reverse of my normal workflow, but I wanted the image to really pop rather than fail as a wishy-washy watercolor. Getting the darks in first helped keep me aware of strong values.