Drawing by Observing a Photo that I Took Using Watercolor; Detailed

Taking the picture

The picture is around the theme of emotion.

I decided to use a lampshade as a prop and the smoke to emphasize the emotion of sadness and powerlessness.

After finding the view that can make the picture look most balance I tried several poses, angles, and lighting.

Putting models in the middle of the picture is the most balance because of the shape of the lampshade that creates the visual focus.

For the lighting, I tried to change the color of the light like blue, orange, and white. Eventually, I did purple since the color go the skin is most matched and created the down vibe.

Before taking these pictures, I already knew what I wanted to express, so I kept shooting continuously, imagining what the picture was going to be in the process, until I got the image I imagined (similar to the upper right square image). The one below is where I'm experimenting with props for different poses, and while that's not my goal, I appreciate the sense of movement it gives me. I also like the effect of the rotated composition on the image on the right. I considered drawing these images along with the last one in the series, but ultimately decided that a single photo would have a bigger impact.

This is the picture that I took when I deciding how to use the lampshade.

I told the model to hold the lampshade up and look down to tried to show the idea of suppress yourself.

The motivation of my idea is from my personal experience that missing home cause of living in different environment. When I just feel lonely and don’t feel any energy to do anything. Thinking that nobody can help me.

So that is why the picture is in the dark. And with smoke.

The picture above is fist I tried to put the model’s head in to the lampshade and to let her spit out the smoke, and I had hard time to find the angle that can make everything has harmony whether is face, light, expression, to the focus.

Process of Drawing

The project is focused on the experience of use watercolor express different texture.

The main color of this picture is obviously the simple color as purple, although the actual color of the clothes is gray and the hair is brown. I want to use watercolor. This gave me a special watercolor experience because it is the glass texture and smoke, these two elements are special, therefore, when painting, I divided the picture into the body and the background to paint. I drew the head of the character first, then the hands and then the body and finally the background. I chose different shades of purple: some with warm undertones, more reddish, but the colors in the photo are very saturated, and I couldn't get a highly saturated purple due to my watercolor color limitations. My colors are generally less saturated. Especially with darker tones, it's hard to paint realistically, but I've been lucky enough to use moisture to add layers of light to my home. Increases the soft and moist nature of the picture.

In the picture above is the character's hands, because of the reflection between the lampshade and light, in the phone the value there is very contrasting and the color is very varied in details, I was having a hard time caring for two things at the same time. I was drawing it too many times unfortunately the paper is about to break because I use water if wipe the paint off the make the light part brighter.

After I draw the hands I drew the glass lampshade then the difficulty is the frame of the glass is extremely dark, thin and smooth. Need to be very focus in the process

The pictures above show the difference between the photos and watercolor paintings.

These in the right is the shadow that forms from the cloth and in the picture, the shadow is very sharp and clear beside that the watercolor versions soften and has more texture on the surface,

Pictures on the right are the gap between cloth, back, and lampshade, of of the most complicated part of the picture is because of the light transmission and reflection on the glass and body, the color is changing from light to dark, and in the high saturation purple.

As the whole drawing it went very well on the balance of the color and have strong visual focus.