Since I was mostly done with the mixed media, during the next art class I started working with paint. Here I also used mixed media: acrylic, gouache (also called poster color), watercolors, and oil pastels. To be honest, I can't really see the difference between acrylic, gouache and watercolors, but to the eyes of a connoisseur they probably are not all that similar.
Using my photograph as reference, I started painting the face with an undercoat of yellow gouache I would then cover with white to get different shades. This went a little wrong though, as the gouache was very dry and would only give very light yellow. I had to apply a lot of coats hence a lot of water. The paper couldn't absorb it all and started wrinkling as the top also started coming off, which didn't look all that great. Meanwhile, the yellow was still a little pale and the brushstrokes showed. I added more and more coats and my face became more and more yellow, till I realized no amount of white would entirely cover it. Ms. Sudra told me to wait till it dried so that we could then iron it out a little. My face ended up being quite a mess and I still haven't completely fixed it.
After finishing the face, I started working on the hair. I used watercolors and this step was quite easy, because I had drawn all the highlights in the hair when using the projector. I thought the strands would be very hard to draw but that turned out to be easier than I expected. The problem I realized at the end, though, is that I can't erase the original pencil drawing of the hair since it is covered with paint. You can't really notice it if you look at it from a distance, but it could be better once you get near. I guess there's not much I can do about that one anyway. The rest went fine.
I then used the oil pastels to color the rest of the coat. I wasn't very confident with oil pastels in the past, but last year I got a lot of practice with them and ended up improving a lot. I first used red pastels for everything except the coat highlights, where I added white and smudged the corners a little. The white pastel was a different kind from the red, so they didn't blend as well as I would've wanted them to, but the result was still alright. I liked using pastels for this part. Another problem I had was with the other part of the coat, the one plunged in darkness. I was gonna use a black pastel to paint the shadows but as soon as I started using it, I realized it was actually dark blue. That looks a bit off in my final painting.
Many of the errors with the paints happened because I didn't have enough practice with them. To fix them, I could have practiced more before painting on my actual portrait. The other thing is that maybe the paper we used was a little thin for a mixed media work. Ms Sudra said they would use stronger paper next year...hopefully, things will get a little better after I iron my work.
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