Taryn

Taryn's first birthday was this afternoon at Ali Baba's.  She is Connor's younger cousin by about 2 months and her actual birthday was 5 days ago.  I started this as a small study months ago but kept developing the piece with the intention of gifting it to her but I couldn't seem to get the watercolor washes down right.  Kinda shot myself in the foot because: 1. the small size is not ideal for portraits, 2. not enough real estate to lay down complex color washes and 3. didn't use 100% rag paper.


I finally had to adjust my technique and work with the materials at hand instead of against it.  The product resembles more of an egg tempera painting than transparent watercolor.  The hues are laid down thick and opaque.  The scan picked up much more of the paper texture than the actual painting in which the colors appear better blended.

Watercolor on Paper, 4.4"x5.7"

In reality, the hardest part of the project was matting the finished piece.  Once more, I didn't think to start out with a standard size of paper so I could just purchase a pre-cut mat.  No problem right?  I've always matted my own artwork.  Long story short - an hour before the party, I was still wrangling the mat cutter with no time left to run to the framing store.

It's been an uphill battle with this one.  Here are the photos of mat and frame:

Matted, 8"x10"

Framed, 10"x12"