King for a day........

Well, this is a little study I just finished. It's acrylic and pastel on paper.
I did this picture on top of another old sketch I did.



So, I began it as you would any picture, roughing in the sketch of the form and then bringing in the undertones. The paper was generally toned beforehand because of the previous picture.

I usually tell my students that one should initially work to get rid of all of the white of the paper, because it is your worst enemy. I say this because, usually, when faced with the stark white, people are intimidated by all of the empty space and tend to freeze.
So, after bringing in all of the undertones I began to bring in more color and definition. There is absolutely no reason that you cannot utilize pencil and line quality in any painting. We tend to think that if we choose one medium, we must stick with it. That is really just....poppy-cock...for need of a better phrase.At this stage I began to bring in the highlights, as well as more skin tones such as peach and pink.

Here is a close up of the highlights as well as the pencil and line quality.
Here you see that I began to deal with the background and resolve it by bringing in color that is complementary to the color in the face. I also began to refine the crown and clothing.
We are getting near the end in this photo...I have brought all of the skin tones in,refined the light in the eyes, finished the color of the crown and background, added some texture of the fluff on the crown, etc.
And viola! It is finished!
A nice portrait of my husband in his birthday crown!