Watercolor Portraits: Man Reading

I did several watercolor paintings of this exercise: ” “Use a graphite pencil to draw a few lines … do notice the lighting hitting the face… Take your watercolor and add a few large shapes. Let dry; add other colors on top…play with different color and texture combinations.” I posted three of them in reverse order of when I did them (I did the bottom one first). Watercolor exercise is from the book One Watercolor a Day.

All of the remaining three portraits on this page are different depictions of my husband. The top one is not – he was a visiting friend. Our friend liked his portrait so much that he asked if he could keep it. So I scanned it into the computer and then presented the watercolor to him. Wonder if he will hang it in his office?

This is the first one I did – it has the least amount of color. Plus, I realized the exercise was really a portrait, and I had done the whole figure. What I really want to focus on here, in this bottom watercolor, is the book. Do you see the splatters of red paint along the spine? This book is a chumash (one of the five books of the Torah). It happens to be part of an edition of volumes that was presented to my father z”l as part of being honored by the Highland Park Kollel. That gives it special meaning, and I am happy to see my husband using that volume as part of his weekly learning.

I think I will do more watercolor portraits. By the way, if you come visit on a Sunday or weekday and start to read a book or your laptop, I might take out my paints, pencils and watercolor paper and start to paint you. You have been warned.