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This blog is hosted by Hanne Lore Koehler, artist, author, illustrator. I will try to post a new article every day, including new work, painting tips, art news. Hope you will join me and leave a comment!

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

New Watercolor Portrait

COLORADO CUTIE


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This Colorado Cutie is Julia. I have just completed this watercolor portrait of Julia as a young girl commissioned by her aunt as a gift for Julia's graduation.

The photo that she sent as reference was taken many years ago in her backyard in daylight, which made it a pleasure to work from; however, the background was not very pleasing or complementary to the beautiful image of the child. Her aunt requested that I paint a Colorado autumn scene in the background with gorgeous fall Aspen colors. I splashed tones of yellow, orange and brown to represent the leaves of Aspen trees and then strategically painted some tree trunks and branches so they would not interfere with the portrait. I painted some blue sky areas to complement the blue denim jacket. We could not tell from the photo the color of Julia's eyes so I reflected the blue jean jacket and sunlight in her eyes to make them sparkle. I fell in love with Julia's precious ponytails and to make them stand out, I painted the background much darker and left plenty of white sunlit highlights to accent her delightful fly-away hair.

Julia is now a beautiful young lady with a bright future. All the best, sweetie!

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