Girl in Water | Posted: Nov. 11, 2016, 1:35 a.m.

Media: Acrylic paint on 20 x 30 inch foam board

Time: ~7-8 hours

This piece marked the first time I painted a portrait using acrylic paints. I initially drew the portrait in pencil and worked from various references since I didn't want this piece to be based on a single photograph. I abandoned the references once I had my initial sketch on the foam board. Now that I look at the piece again, it looks a bit like Emily Blunt, even though I definitely did not use any references of her.

As I have mentioned before, I had a difficult time finding the right color for the skin tone. I used a red-violet undertone for the skin, which may have not been the best decision because it is the same color I used for the girl's hair. Thus, the hair and the skin are given a "similar precedence." However, to truly capture the effect of a girl in water, the hair should recede into the painting while the skin should protrude. Using a warmer color for the skin's undertone, say a tone of yellow, would have caused the skin to have "higher precedence" and thus protrude more from the painting.

I'm not going to lie -- I got pretty lazy with the background, which is why it looks the way it does. Since I was working on a relatively large-scale piece, I thought I could create an impressionistic background similar to the ones featured in Monet's works. From a distance, the background would look realistic, but up close, the viewer would be able to see all the strokes.

After initially painting the background and working on the overall piece for 6 straight hours, I decided I was done with the piece. I worked on the background for a bit before deciding the girl was the subject of the piece and therefore the background didn't need to be as realistic.