But she's supposed to look ugly!

Thanks for the kind comments re: yesterdays post.

At this early stage the paintings are at their worst and are supposed to be hideously bad looking.  The trick is to remember that what is laid down are just the undercoats and aren't expected to actually look anything but "ugly."  Once the basic few layers are down, the real work begins and the actual final painting will start to show through.  It's a gradual process and I haven't had one yet that's looked "nice" at this stage.  This was always a problem when I first started using coloured pencil because I didn't realize that things get better as they are worked.  Now knowing that though, I trudge through to a later point before judging whether or not the painting is likely to be sucessful.

All of that being said, I wasn't excited about doing this one from the start as it is a painfully difficult one in the first place!  A character builder perhaps;-) 

I do actually use "greyed lavendar" in the paintings.  The reason I mentioned purple not being a colour to use is that it is not a very light fast colour.  Purple pigment in coloured pencils has a life span of only a few years, from what I've read.  I've always used a workable fixative over my finished works so hopefully they won't fade too much!  But I generally shy away from drawing models that contain a lot of purples, such as certain flowers, etc.....

We are in the midst of our first snow storm of the year, so going out photographing wasn't possible due to the high winds and well, snow. Digital SLR's and wet don't mix!  Hot chocolate (probably trying to get out of having to deal with me this week so suggested this day not realizing it wouldn't stop me from getting out;-) suggested we go out today. We went for coffee instead and did some blind contour drawings.

If you've never done one give it a try.  They are a lot of fun!  Pick something and draw every little line you see without actually looking down  at the paper.  This trains your eye to draw what you are seeing instead of your mind to draw what you think something should look like.  It helps to train you to pay more attention to the shapes of models and with things such as forshortening when drawing an outstretched figure.