Back to the Stone

A dash of color....

This was an interesting project for me, as it marks my first steps with a color medium.

To start with I lightly drew the line work with a black water color pencil. I may try a complimentary color for this next time.

Then I added tone to the hair as overall it was the darkest part of the image. But added quite a soft tone.

The rest of the black tone was then added at once to complete the first stage.

I added the first color as a light yellow over the whole body to provide an under tone and the basis of the tanned skin. The light tone hardly shows in the scan here.

Then I passed over with a soft tan.

Then again with a darker brown.

A dark purple and the brown were layered over the nipples, lips and a little on the nose. A dark blue was used to add darker tones to the right arm and creases. Also dark brown was used to outline the eyes and a few spots on the face.

The tones of the hair were built up with layers of yellow, orange, brown and black, which I think helped to balance the rest of the image a bit more.

Then to finish I added some grey tone for the stone background. I don't often use a background but felt that with a color piece it was needed to place the figure properly.

Rock

'Cock' Rock...

Partially influenced by the recent images removed from Deviant Art.

The 'rock' here is a confectionery from the UK which is traditionally sold in sea-side towns and has the name of the town running through the middle of, and it like a big stick of a candy cane. These are some of my favourite poses.

As usual I started with the Easy Grid method.

Then starting with the left arm, as it was behind the lighter hair, was in the top left of the image and provided a dark tone contrast.

To compliment the left arm I added the tone for the right arm next largely for the same reasons.

As is often the case, the eye was a key feature of the face to resolve next. Although the subjects eyes are closed, the dark lashes provided a dark tone for the centre of the image.

Looking for the next darker tones in the image of course then led to the node and lips. The tones round the eye sockets lead to the tones on the nose, and the shade under the lips led to the darker tones on the lips. In this images, the tones round the nose didn't lead into the rest of the tones of the face, I think because of the subject's profile in this picture.

Then I jumped to the tones round the ear, which were quite light, and bridged them over to complete the facial tones.

Looking for darker face tones then lead to including the tones of the neck and shoulder as they were similar and working on them together helped to keep the balance.

I then continued to look for darker tones in the face and included the tones of the back shoulder again to help keep the balance and as they were now some of the last large areas to complete.

Once the tones of the neck were all in place then the dark collar with it's dark shadow was added to provide contrast and depth.

Then finally the rock tones were added in straight lines with minimal cross hatching.