For our third project we were tasked with creating a portrait of someone reacting to something, with the correct proportions. I've never really been good at drawing realistically or proportionally, so I was very nervous about this project. However the warm ups were very informative and now I feel like I can confidently draw a realistic person.
I had a plan for this project almost since the day it was announced. I wanted to create someone reacting to something so intensely sad that they can't comprehend it. I'm still not totally sure what she's reacting to, because I've never experienced anything as sad and as traumatic as she has. My idea from the beginning was to draw her like she was crying in the shower. This would of course mean that she would be naked so I would have to strategically place her limbs so they covered her body. The paining is done on illustration board with water color and pen.
When drawing her I didn't want to show her in the shower; I didn't want to draw the shower head and the bulky appliances. My idea was to have her in the middle of the page, curled up in the fetal position. Then I would make it look like she was dripping off of the page. I also decided to smear her makeup to make it look like she had been crying. This was my way of creating water without actually having to draw water. Then I had to decide on the background. I decided to make it dark blue, almost black, and use the dripping technique again. I wanted it to feel like the dark background was reaching out to grab her and pull her into the darkness.
I was very nervous about this project going into it, but now I am very very happy with how it turned out. I really love using water color and pen together, it's slowly becoming my favorite medium. This is also one of my favorite projects that I've done in art.