The girl with the dragon tattoo

It's Final Project time for my Acrylic class. To redeem myself from the shameful disaster of my last project (though my instructor seemed to like it by giving it a 97/100 grade), I set out to do something a little more in my style. The requirements this time are 1) to make our own wooden canvas and 2) to incorporate glazing into the composition; layering semi-transparent paints on top of each other so that all the colors show through. Russ made the 18" x 24" canvas for me in his workshop. I sanded it down then primed it with gesso which helps to hold the paints on the surface of the canvas.

The hardest part was coming up with a good idea. I wanted to do a background that had a water-like effect. Initially I thought I would run paint diluted with water down the canvas but that didn't really work. I wanted to have a dark background which was a problem as transparent paints don't show up very well in dark backgrounds. I ended up painting the canvas black, then brushed on six layers of different colored paints mixed with matte medium (which is what makes the paint transparent). It wasn't quite what I have envisioned but I liked  the result.

For whatever reason I was fascinated with tattoos and was looking online for examples of what look good on a woman. I've been wanting a tattoo for a long time; nothing major just a little one on my back or something. But Russ isn't a fan of body art and I've been told by too many people that tattoos look bad as one ages. Maybe I'll wait till I've wrinkled enough for aging to no longer make any difference. Then I'll go wild!

I found a photograph of an Asian model sporting an elaborate dragon tattoo on her back. I thought it was beautiful and decided on that as my reference. I liked the red background in the photograph but didn't want to completely paint over the existing background. So I experimented by filling a small spray bottle with magenta paint diluted with water and created a different effect. I think it looks better than if the model were drawn directly on top of the background.

I created the skin tone by starting with a very light orange paint, then used transparent paints of darker orange, yellow and then white to create depth. I purposely made the model rather pale but in hindsight I probably could have made her darker and used more variations of values.

I got the proportions completely wrong. Here I had to adjust the size of the model's body before painting it. The elbow looks narrower than it should but that's what it seemed in the photograph.

Almost done with the model here. I painted the hair which was black with blue tint, and added highlights for hair and body. I still needed to put  some paint around some parts of the model that should be the background; like the area next to her elbow, her lips and along the edge of her back.

For the tattoo on her back, I wasn't sure at first how I wanted to proceed. It seemed that painting it with that many details would not only be daunting but also likely to not even look like tattoo. I decided to print the tattoo on the photograph to scale, then used tracing papers to transfer the image to the canvas. I then used transparent paints for the colors. The effect was quite good. I'm happy with it.

There are definitely a number of improvements I can still make. The back seems more hunched and thicker than I want. The skin can use more colors, especially on the face. The hair can use more highlights. I can probably do more to the eyes as well. Overall I'm happy with what I did in just a few days, and I feel vindicated after the last project which is going to die a very painful death.