FFII : Week 5

Effy's 8-week online class Facing Forward II : the things we need to hear is open indefinitely. Just as well for me - this is my week 5 girl. I started with a blank piece of paper that will be glued into my art journal since this lesson is all about the doodles and for once I didn't want any background distractions.

After my initial outline, there was a bit of thinking about what I wanted to convey - looking at my art symbols dictionary helped with some of that. I am thinking about Shine (obviously) - stars and sun, growth (leaves and flowers), creativity (spirals and swirls), love (hearts), lightness (feathers) and chandeliers (sparkle). I did the doodling and forgot to take a progress photo til I had added some of the colour as well - must have been having too much fun :-)

What a difference more colour makes! I ♥ taking progress photos. This is all the initial colour done before starting on the skin : 

I changed pieces in her hair from orange to red once I added orange to the head piece. I used a mixture of Tombows and Aqua markers since I have limited colours in both. I really wanted the yellow at the top so used Inktense pencil activated with Iridescent medium for that. I also added Iridescent to the heart area because I didn't want to waste it! I have used my black Pitt pen to redefine the swirls in the yellow, the hearts, and the leaves. Thinking the rest might need different attention....
Added flesh tone here using a large PITT marker. This lesson was all about using just markers and pencils. 

Bit more uneven than I would have liked, and darker than I expected from a pen called "light flesh" - maybe it's my paper. I have enough experience now to not be concerned cos I know this is just the first layer. Once the layer of clear gesso over this had dried it was time to add pencils. Click on the photo to see pencil brand and softened effect.

Final touches

I recently bought some vellum shapes featuring lots of gold - thought she could do with a necklace form and I hadn't managed to include a feather (for lightness) in my doodles 

If you've seen anything of my blog this year, you won't be surprised by my affirmation ♥

Enjoyed this lesson more than I expected to and love the outcome. 

So fun to explore different techniques and push myself to try things I wouldn't normally do. See all the blog posts about the faces I've created in this class HERE. See my Flickr album for all my art from classes with Effy HERE.