“Green Hooded Woman” tiny watercolor 11-14-08

Well, late last night, I just had to play with my new little watercolor field kit I put together. I love making up new kit ideas to carry my art stuff around in.

A picture of it all packed up, it only stands 6″ tall and 4″ wide.

Here it is with all the contents laid out, can you believe how much stuff I can fit inside it?

For the painting, I actually painted it while laying on the bedroom floor! Sometimes I think I’m just a kid in grown up clothes, doing things I would have done when I was younger. In College I painted using an old bread board on the floor, all the time! I had no desk in my apartment and it was just easier.

Well, back to my tiny watercolor. It’s only 3 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ big! I used little brushes and the tiny little cup for water. I didn’t start with any drawing, I just started painting, looking for the shapes and laid them in lightly. As I started to add the face details, that’s when I checked using comparative measurements, where her mouth, nose, eyes all fell. Then I pulled the hood down a tad before putting it’s green color on.

Below, I added the background wash and more on the hood, washing some background blue onto the green of the hood. I lightened the eyes also, touching them up. And then darkened the shadows.

Last is the finished little painting. I worked on hair details more, adding some burnt sienna to add warm darker tones and more hair strands. I painted some purple in the shadow on her chest near my signature. The purple was a nice choice, darkened without making it look dirty colored. I added more greens and a light wash of cadmium yellow to the upper hood to warm it up. The hood on the left side (shadow side) got only blue washes. I added some darks on her upper chest and washed over her shoulder, then lifted the highlight by dabbing a clean paper towel after wetting the paper repeatedly. Then after deciding the eyes were as good as I wanted them, (sometimes a hard thing to let go of) I added a tiny white highlight with a dot of white watercolor paint. Finished little beauty!! Hope you like it!

6 Comments

  1. Mary, this is a beautiful painting. I love the look in her eyes – I have seen that look before and it is beautiful dreamy and innocent and yet seductive.
    It is great to see it in progress too.
    Thank you –
    Wendy.

  2. Thanks Wendy!
    I just love painting eyes, they are the most important part of the portrait to me. This one was hard because it’s so tiny! I needed my reading glasses at the end, haha…
    I want to try some more miniature portraits. On my website, Princess Mary in oil was pretty small, but not as small as this.
    thanks!
    Mary

  3. Beautiful painting. I can barely draw a stick figure and find anyone with such artistic talent pretty amazing. Thanks for sharing.

  4. this is some of the most beautiful work I have seen. It is good to see what someone really needs and uses in terms of equipment to. Thankyou for your postings.

  5. thanks Bruce, I’m glad showing my supplies helped. I want to organize the pages I have for just that purpose, under “Lessons + Presentations”, here’s the link: https://marymcandrew.com/lessons_presentations/my-art-supplies-equipment-books/ At this point I’m way, way behind on that page!!
    Do you paint also? Don’t forget to take a look at my note cards and prints etc in my shop, I have this design “Green Hooded Woman” there too.
    take care,
    Mary

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