Painting ACEOs the Amy Way

Some of you have already seen this on my Flickr, but for those who haven't, here's a brief presentation of my process for my little aceo watercolors. Instead of working up in the studio, I paint these downstairs on the dining room table so I can keep an eye on the kiddos and dinner and those other fun mom things. The setup is so minimal that I can set up and pack it all away in seconds--you gotta love that!

So here's the components: mechanical pencil, kneaded eraser, Rapidograph pen, round pointy paintbrush, palette, jar of water, paper towels, and watercolor paper cut down to aceo size. Painting small has its pluses.

First, I sketch out the figure in pencil. It's pretty loose right now.

Then I go over it in ink, tightening things up as I go. I give the ink a moment to dry, then erase the pencil lines. Stupid pen bled on the left eye and tore the paper a bit, but it's okay--I can make that work.

Then I start with background colors and shadows--I usually keep those similar. It helps tie a painting together when the base colors have the same tones. So in this case it's dull grayish browns (washes of burnt sienna and ultramarine blue).

After that I wash in some fleshy colors (mixing cad red light, some naples yellow, a smidge of cerulean blue, etc) on the face and hands and blot out the spaces where I want highlights.

Then I add warmer and pinker tones to the cheeks, fingers, ears, nose, and eyelids, and put the initial washes of color on the hair and clothing.

And I like wallpaper, so I added a simple rose and stripe combination.

And I love plaid, so I gave her a plaid shirt under her sweater. And I darkened her eyes and gave her freckles, and generally deepened the shadow tones.

And last, because I can't leave anything alone, I darkened most of the background, leaving a window-shaped square of light in the corner.

And she's done! All in all, this one took about an hour. That's not including all the interruptions, of course! I personally love to see other artists' processes, so I hope you enjoyed this teeny peek into my terribly glamorous world:)