Meg

I thought this photo of my daughter at prom this spring would be a really good one for the chiaroscuro, albeit that I also am working on two others for this same challenge which are larger. The photo has the dramatic lighting, and I thought it would be sort of fun.

I worked with my paints (both Lumiere and Dynaflow, as well as regular acrylics with fabric medium) and Prismacolor, Inktense and Mondial pencils. The metalic of her earring and the sparkles on her dress were done with glitter gel pens. After I quilt it, I intend to add some itty bitty crystals. The piece measure 8 1/2" x 11" .

I'm not too happy with this at present, albeit the real thing is slightly darker than the image you see here as I had to use the flash on it in order to get it to come out since it's dark out (but hey, I still made the deadline!!!!). Trying to get the darks dark enough without it just looking like a dirty smudge is difficult. I was also struggling with getting her mouth right, and while it doesn't look like her, at least it is a reasonable drawing of a person!

Another challenge I faced with it was to get the eyes correct. Her eyes are actually green, and it doesn't come out well in the quilted image. I need to work a little more on it, especially on the side in shadow. they need to be darkened a bit more and highlights put in. The skin tone (the ruddiness of her cheeks) need to be worked on as well. The mouth shape could stand some improvement, but unfortunately I can't change that much anymore.

I also intend to work on her hands...she really doesn't have flippers. Perhaps using net over her hair would darken that and give the shadow I need....But I could really stand some suggestions on the face so that it doesn't look like she's growing a beard.