I used mostly Prismas and Luminance cp's with mineral spirits on 100% rag mat board. I'm almost sad I darkened the foreground. It's hard to know what to do once you have taken the plunge. Even if you photo shop values into the comp during the designing stages, there's the perspective and "reality"aspect. Would I leave a detailed background and a blank foreground? Wouldn't that be odd? My thought was that subtle roughed in details and shadowy earth tones would support the portrait without busying it up too much. What do you think?
Doberman Pincher WIP
Lucy is coming along. Her coat colors are a gigantic challenge. I have hundreds of colored pencils rolling around on the drafting table! The use of mineral spirits was crucial. Tweaking will come later. I am going to set this aside for a little while to work on something else. Plenty left to do, but I'm "Artist blind."
Portrait commission WIP of Lucy the Doberman Pincher
I'm having a little trouble with my rag mat board surface holding up to all the color pencil layers. One thing I've found: odorless mineral spirits when allowed to over saturate breaks down my surface. I've since switched back to good old regular mineral spirits, but the damage was already done. -Came close to starting all over, but was able to dip and dab color where needed. The detailing is just about impossible. Working fixative allows a little repair. Otherwise, the piece is coming along. I will never return to odorless mineral spirits. Thank goodness for windows and fans!