Sunday Sessions - "Observant" - Painting Process
art·@neeqi·
0.000 HBDSunday Sessions - "Observant" - Painting Process
 #### <center> • Observant • </center> I've decided that I want to keep to a little series called Sunday Sessions which includes completing a full art piece and documenting the process, and as you may have guessed it, on Sundays. It is my guaranteed day off every week and gives me a lot of time to work on projects like this. In all honestly though lately I have been feeling absolutely exhausted. It's pretty unusual for me to struggle to rise in the morning and to nap throughout the day but it has been a bit of a theme. I took a few days off Steemit because I was worried I was overloading myself and creating too much pressure to be active and I found that I was really losing motivation to complete the things I'm passionate about. I know how important it is take a step back when you are feeling overwhelmed and instead I just let myself participate in things that really don't require much from me like binge watching episodes and going out for a walk or a people watching session along the esplanade. Although my energy was low this morning I decided to persevere through and I'm glad I did because I'm pretty happy with what I was able to create. My inspiration was sparked and my piece found fluidity through the comforting sounds of this Joe Rogan [podcast](http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/dan-harris-jeff-warren). It focus's heavily on the theme of meditation and I found it really enjoyable to listen to whilst painting.  #### • Initial Sketch • I'm trying to get more comfortable working on pieces that are on a larger scale. I decided that this piece would work well on A3.  #### • Skin Tone • Keeping to the theme of working with things outside my comfort zone, I wanted to experiment with different colours for skin tone. I have a tendency to stick to what I know and really perfect particular things but after a while I tend to get bored with repetition. Going into this piece I knew there was going to be a lot of experimentation. I settled on pink and yellow and like how the colours compliment each other.  #### • Background • I have really enjoyed creating background textures by using a straw to blow the paint in different directions. Here I also used a water dropper to create more controlled spots.  #### • Hands • Hands are one of my favourite things to draw yet I still find incredibly hard to perfect. I'm really happy with the way the hands came out and once again getting a bit more comfortable with shading and contrast.   #### • Hair • When I think about creating hair I feel like I can break the pieces down in my mind but when it comes to putting pen to paper I get a little confused on the fluidity of how the hair moves and shapes. There are a few things here that I would've changed but I am slowing starting to understand how it works. I couldn't decided what colour to settle on for the hood and decided on green thinking it would contrast okay because of the background.  #### • Face • The way the face is designed was inspired by a portrait of Alex Grey. He drew these emanating rings that create this really psychedelic feel to his face. I tried to recreate the same effect with pencil which I felt originally worked, but when I went to paint over the lines I just didn't have a fine enough brush to get lines that I was satisfied with. I questioned if I should've used black fine liner instead. Before I finalised the piece I used an eraser to remove any pencil markings which ended up lightening the face and lines to which I preferred.  #### • Details • Originally I hadn't planned to outline any of this piece because a lot of the watercolour artists' I draw inspiration from have the ability to bring their pieces together without doing this. But without the lining I felt like everything lacked a little dimension. I guess this is something to work on in the future although its not necessarily something I want to remove from my style altogether. I added my signature dots to the hair and some gold trim to the hood just for some pop. I'm pretty damn pooped right now but regardless feeling super happy that I was able to complete this. I'd love to hear your thoughts so please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Big love to you! Sarah. 🍄 
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