Small Art

I read some where, some time in the past, actually quite a few years ago, that if you get stuck you should change the format of your art.  Like do something really small or do something really large.  I tried the wild heart painting earlier in the summer on a 40" by 6' piece of paper.  That was FUN, but it did not help my malaise with arting.  Recently, in the newest CPS they had an article about 6" X 6" portraits.  Did you read it?  So, I gave that a shot.  Six by six inches does force you to constrain what you put in the portrait.  Just as when I did the tarot card which was 3.5" X 5", I discovered I had to choose what I would put within the area allowed.
For the first two portraits I used Tam's method of layering gesso, then water soluble crayons then watered down gesso to blend the crayons.  I found I could keep layering with this mix nicely.  Then, on the 4th of July, it was so cloudy and dismal, I decided to do a journal page about that, and added a portrait to the lay out using the same method.  The paper in my journal did not react at all like the gessoed book boards!  A completely different look to the portrait.  Interesting, don't you think?

I made a line drawing from a photo and transferred it onto the 6X6 in gessoed book cover board.

This one I tried to make a transfer but it did not work out very well.  But, I drew the lines as best as I could see, adding the longer hair.  It is also reversed which gave her a different look.  I experimented with trying to make the glasses look transparent, something I have not worked with for many years.

And, in the journal book, I just used the photo to look at as I drew the portrait.  I started with gessoed pages, added gray water color crayons to make the background gray cloudy looking.  Added the drawing, then water color crayons and gesso to paint with.