I have created many acrylic portraits but I have only tackled a few in watercolor… finally got my chance.
First published December 23, 2023: I have created many portraits over the years. My very first one was of my 1-yr. old son. It was with a plain old number 2 pencil and yes, I still have it. I have this picture of myself that my son took of me in St Petersburg, Russia about 7 years ago. It is a straight on headshot, so I thought it would be easy to recreate, but I never got around to making it into a portrait — until now. Here is the original picture.
In the meantime, I joined Skillshare, which is a site for members to take classes in just about anything. Today, I took Arleesha Yetzer’s Watercolor Portrait class called “Watercolor Portraits: Dynamic Atmosphere and Whimsical Skin.” Arleesha does a good job of showing how to mix skin colors with just the three primaries, which I really appreciate, because I don’t like to buy a lot of different colors when I can mix them.
This class was about 42 minutes long, and it was the perfect amount of time for me, since I have practiced with watercolors before. Arleesha’s style is very easy to learn from. I am showing my first one here, which is a satisfying first try. I struggle with “whimsical” anything, which was what attracted me to this course. I think after a few more times, I will loosen up.
Bubbles was the only whimsical thing I could think of. Hmmm. In the meantime, I took a closer look at my original photo, and I see some shapes I could have used. So yes, I will be doing this again.
Thank you, Arleesha, for waking up the whimsical in me.