I began this sketch on one of those days where I wasn't feeling it. I had absolutely no plan. I just picked one of my nudes and started with a Derwent Inktense pencil. The figure herself came out well and I loved the top of her hair. As I worked I went from drawing her with pencil and then going over the pencil marks with a wet brush to get the painted look, to wiping the damp brush on the end of the pencil and painting directly onto the paper. I did feel like a bit of an idiot not thinking of this before.
As I progressed the hair I feel it lost its lovely flow. I should have kept it more strand like rather then clumping it together. I could perhaps have rescued it, but the paper was getting too damp and I felt as I was making things worse. As the body shape is so lovely I will definitely use this image again.
I had the idea of creating a background based on the kelp forests. Shooting a little high I fear. As this piece had no real plan I dove straight in without trying it out first. Hence the mess of the background. I started at the bottom and left. You can see by the top right that I was figuring it out, but by then I had made too many mistakes. I did try and simplify my original plan and used white tubed watercolour paint to soften down the errors. Due to the medium used I couldn't keep working it. The paper was wearing out under the abuse!
Framing with the seaweed was a very last minute decision and the smeared paint was actually seeing if I could add a wash to recover things. Ironically, I really like how both of these elements look in the finished painting. This loose, unfinished kind of feel is alien to me, so I was pleased I managed it and resisted the temptation to cut the paper to hide all of it.
To be honest, this poorer result did bring me down a bit. I knew there would be bad days and I have tried these pencils before and I know I need a lot of practise with them. Still, seeing what started as a lovely image descend into chaos was disheartening. Luckily, my new pastels arrived from the SAA. This cheered me up. Having already decided I wanted to try this idea again, getting a big set of pastels (my favourite medium), felt like a sign that I should do it again in pastel.
This has not put me off the Inktense pencils. Even I can see there are some elements where I was definitely getting somewhere. I just need some practise and perhaps some instruction. Every day is a learning day.
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