All that wittering on about identifying what’s mine painting wise, and the next thing to appear is a face! WHAT?! No! Do not confuse me with this tangent!
Those circles are the result of dripping isopropyl alcohol/rubbing alchohol onto the wet paint with a dripper, a little technique I learned from Wyanne. 
She does look rather serious. Also her eyes are bit close together for my liking, but once I’d realised this it was too late to change them without making a big old mess. Never mind, nobody’s perfect. (Or everybody is, depending on how you look at it!)
I think it’s safe to say I’ve no idea what I’m doing at this stage, but I’m letting that be ok.
There are the circles. No words this time. Apparently I had nothing to say! Most unusual. I still want to put some in there, but not until they are ready, otherwise it sounds too forced and trite. We’re all about the meaning round here now. 😉
I did some of this while on the phone, which proved a most excellent tool for distracting me from thinking about what I was doing.
Unusually for me I don’t have a name for this painting; normally it’s swirling around in my head from fairly early on. It’ll come in it’s own good time I imagine. Oooh perhaps I’ll give HER a name! (ach, stream of consciousness typing, sorry)
I’m actually pretty happy with her now. I think more could be added but naturally I am afraid to ruin it or run into overkill. So she stays like this for now and it’s all good.
I tell you what though, I really would like to be better at the shading on faces. Quite a considerably large amount better. I understand about the whole ‘where is the light coming from’ concept, and have watched quite a few process videos on YouTube (they make it look so easy!), but somehow they are still coming out flat and stylised for me.
Also I want to write a poem on all those lines!
Oh, Oh, Oh,–very cool–LOVE!!
Love her Tara, she's wonderful and those circles are perfect right up close to her like that!!
Stunning dear…just absolutely stunning!
She's beautiful, great job.
the streak running from "her" eye just made it for me. I don't know why but up until then I kept thinking — what's next, what will happen next and then as soon as I saw that "tear" running down the cheek the eyes made sense to me as did all the blue.
You guys….! Thank you! Interesting point Sherry, love hearing the thoughts!xx
Tara, I wanted to comment on your new "distracting tool", the phone. I can totally relate, it's kinda the same thing I meant when I wrote about music and painting on my blog the other day. Isn't it fantastic when we have a distraction like that to keep us from analyzing every single step of our paintings? It's like we're only using the right side of our brains, the fun side, and we go with the flow! Fabulous"
Very dreamy and ethereal. I learnt shading from Suzi Blu. She talks a lot about tonal values – from your darkest darks to lightest lights and everything in between – there's a place for them all in your face. It's harder with paint than pencil though I find and in this particular painting I think what you've done works just fine – especially with that strong contrast between the deep night blue of her hair and the paler quality of skin. It's a love piece. You should be chuffed!!
hi tara: she's lovely! i wouldn't change a thing…she's already a vision. vicki 🙂
T, I LOVE how she has evolved – the darkness, the streak, the circles, the depth of tonality and a monogrammatic color scheme…. it all works so incredibly well together!
I think the shading is beautiful, you my dear are crazy and I have no idea what you're talking about – you're definitely not giving yourself enough credit! You rocked the milk duds outta this one – can't wait to see what you
do next!
I'm going through a blue period myself–love this portrait–it's so moody and delicious all at the same time!
BIG Hugs!! BIG Hugs!
She is lovely! Her gaze is penetrating, like she knows what you're thinking…
The first two weeks of Tam's Fabulous Faces course is great for learning about light and shading in portraiture.
x
This is wonderful! I like the seriousness of the girl, makes me wonder what she's seen and what she's thinking.