Studio Time

This is the result of going through that whole rigamarole yesterday. I trimmed all of the prints with a paper cutter… Alternately, you can use an X-acto knife and a straight-edge.

After taping all of the prints together with transparent tape, I transferred the drawing using graphite paper (Carbon paper made with graphite.) and a ballpoint. (Ballpoints don’t tear the paper as often when you bear down on them and they give you a lot better reference regarding what you have and haven’t traced.) I re-drew it with water-soluble graphite, sealed that with a light coat of (mostly) water mixed with acrylic medium, sanded it and drew a bit more…

I gave our queen a bit of cleavage (Seemed necessary… she’s “dark”.), a pair of velvet hot pants and striped stockings that reflect a few of the other forms in the painting. I stylized the rest of it and made a few changes here and there, then made an attempt to map out some of the colors with watercolor pencils. It got 2 more coats of acrylic medium. That blended the colors into fairly continuous fields as well as fixing the drawing into the canvas. This dried overnight and got sanded again. (rotary sander… it makes things go much faster. You need to be careful on stretched canvas though.)

I just realized that her robe/hair is going to have to be dark or she’s going to come off as some sort of bouncy, Pollyanna type. I’ll make some color changes this morning… I’m pretty sure how they need to go.