I Had No Idea How To Paint This!

I saw a photograph of my brother's  three year old granddaughter on Facebook. She was sitting on the edge of the stage at her ballet class recital in her pink tulle tutu. But dear me! She was not happy....if this had been a pretty little picture of her, I would have thought "how cute" and that would have been the end of it.

But - she was pouting; it was a dark photo and I was quite fascinated with the idea of painting her in this setting.

Here is the reference photograph. I lightened the photo on Photoshop which helped a little as her features were not clear. I felt that I did get a likeness in my drawing and most importantly, the posture that appealed to me so much in the original photograph. 

As I was drawing this little figure, I began to think about how I could achieve the look of the filmy tulle and also see her plump little legs under the tulle.  

The more complete the drawing became - the less I felt I knew how to proceed.  

I told myself "it's just value and edges".  

Have you heard this before?

  

It didn't help.

So - I took my own advice and did a study.   The minute I started this, I knew that yes, it truly was values and edges. The folds of the tulle were graded washes. I changed the temperature from warm to cool as the fold turned into the shadow. Edges that turned away were softened.

The next two studies gave me the confidence that I needed to start that large stretched paper.   I made the value of her legs a bit darker under the tulle than they were in the light, and then lifted out the light lines. I left the green ribbon as the white of the paper until I had completed the skirt.

 I painted all of the background first. This allowed me to paint her hair into the dark and then lift out wispy hairs that gave her head an "airy' feeling.
I painted the warm colors in her hair so that they would show as "highlights" against her dark hair

Here you can see how the change of values gives depth and puts the underskirt behind the tulle. This effect is enhanced by wet in wet painting where I charged different roses and also a darker

neutral into the pink skirt 

 .

"Reluctant Ballerina"   I spent a day adjusting the values of the shadowed areas on her bodice, the dark background and I can't tell you how many times I touched her lower lip with rose! It just disappeared time after time. Finally used a bit of quinacridone rose and that worked.

I hope that this may prove helpful to you as you work through ways to achieve specific effects with your paintings.

What worked for me was being clear about what I was trying to do (create the look of crispy tulle over soft flesh) and then ask yourself what you know how to do that will make that effect possible.

You've heard me say that "naming it makes it possible". I am more convinced of that every single day.