Chasing color, finding a face

This piece started as a straightforward portrait study of a young woman — but from the first wash, I knew I wanted to push somewhere more interesting. Realism in the features, yes, but the palette would have its own life entirely.

Watercolor on Strathmore 500 Series

The tension between naturalistic rendering and bold, contrasting color is something I keep coming back to. Faces are so familiar to us that even small distortions read immediately — so the challenge is getting the structure right while letting the color wander into more expressive territory. Warm oranges against cool violets in the shadows. Greens where you'd never expect them. The kind of choices that feel wrong at first and then suddenly right.

I painted this on Strathmore 500 Series, which continues to be one of my favorites for this kind of work. The surface has just the right amount of texture — it holds wet washes without buckling and lets you lift and rework without destroying the paper. For a painting where I needed to push and pull the color relationships, that forgiveness matters.

The atmosphere was just as important as the figure herself. I wanted her to feel like she was dissolving slightly at the edges — present but not pinned down. Watercolor does that naturally when you let it; the trick is knowing when to stop controlling it.

I'm happy with where this one landed. The colors are doing the heavy lifting, which is exactly where I wanted them.