I have decided to keep the emphasize on the little girl’s face and have been diligently working on the sketch. I never seem to be able to
break away from drawing, so why should this one be any different?!
I started by placing two layers of light beige gesso on the canvas. Since this painting needs to be an exact likeness and involves a lot of detailed
jewelry, I placed a grid over the gesso surface. Then I drew everything out using a regular pencil and covered it again with Faber-Castell aPitt artist pen extra fine tip. This pen is made of india ink, is waterproof and has the color of Raw Umber. Unlike pencil that has a tendency to seep through colored layers, the ink seems to stay put and will eventually merge with the Raw Umber underpainting. Furthermore I won’t lose the initial drawing until much later stages of the painting. Since I tend to work with thin applications of paint, it also forces me to paint and paint, until I get everything just right and have covered the surface with plenty of paint. Yes, there are easier ways of doing this, but this is how I like to work! Actually, I know my short comings and it’s a way to force me to take no short cuts. Before I can proceed to the underpainting stage, everything has to get cleaned up, in other words - no pencil marks!
