Portraits of my Family

In Watercolor

As I’ve worked on improving my portraiture skills, I’ve focused on painting the people I know and love. A teacher of mine suggested that painting people we don’t know may be easier, because we don’t have the heart connection to them that makes “mistakes” more risky. I tried that for a while and discovered that the heart connection is what makes me love painting these portraits. In fact, I put so much of my emotions into painting the portrait of my recently deceased mother (top left) that I stopped painting for a few weeks after I finished it.

Materials and methods:

I use Arches cold press watercolor paper and Windsor & Newton watercolor paints. I try and stick with colors which are more non-staining, because I do a lot of color lifting with a clean dry brush and I want to be able to get close the white of the paper when I do that. That said, I’m not a stickler to my own guidelines so I mix it up sometimes.