Painting and Painting

I read a blog by Kartanonrouva Elise, and she challenged all her readers to do a painting. This was a while back, but I was inspired! I measured an empty frame I had and did a quick sketch while watching Star Trek ;P I documented the painting stages, so here we go!

The lighting wasn't perfect, but this is the original sketch done with
pencils on watercolour paper. I like drawing and painting faces!

This is the painting after the first layer of watercolours. I felt it was a
total failure at this point, the paper wouldn't stay straight (I taped it to
the table and that should work, but the tape kept loosing grip) and I couldn't
find my old watercolours so I had to do with the basic colours I found, and
they were missing one shade of blue making it impossible to blend warm
browns. Luckily there's was a tiny piece left on an old palette!

After a second layer of colours and details. The painting really came together
at this stage and I was happy!

The finished painting in the frame I painted it for.

I'm so happy I did it, I haven't painted anything in years! I had even lost my watercolours (they might still be buried in some closet), but it was a good thing in the end, I had to think more of how to combine the ones I had. Cats drank from my water cup and there was hair on the painting and I scratched the surface when trying to pick them off. The painting and the frame combined are a bit busy, but I just couldn't see the magnificent frame with a minimalistic painting! All in all, I'm happy with the painting, it's not my best piece but it was fun to do and the result is nice.

Maybe next time I'll whip out some pastels or even my set of oil paints! I've been working with markers for long and they are just too easy and boring, traditional techniques are messy and offer more surprises :)