The Letter: Step 9

As I did with the shirt, I decided to mess around with the color of the skirt a bit to tie it in with the flowers and fit the composition a little better. The skirt in the photos was a nice khaki-gray-green, lovely with the white shirt but a little awkward with the pink. The bright green of the stems in the bouquet was a tempting choice, but not really as subtle/elegant as I thought it should be. I settled on a warm, dark brown close to the color of the hair. As you can see in the images below, it didn’t last. As soon as I had the area in the first image blocked in, I realized it was too dark and the contrast far to distracting. So I wiped it off. Very carefully. In the end I decided to go with this light tan color. I think it goes much better with the pink shirt, it’s light enough to play nicely with the extremely fair skin of the legs, and an all-around simple, elegant choice. Of course, it doesn’t exactly tie in with the flowers, but I thought a little decorative band in the dark brown of the hair with an embroidered floral design in the green of the stems would take care of that.
After all the fussing around with colors and wiping off of paint, I only managed to get a little of the skirt finished in the first sitting.

Here it is at the end of the second sitting.

And, finally, the finished skirt.
I think it turned out rather well. At some point since the completion of the shirt, it seems I must have also painted the letter for which the painting will eventually be named.
Tags: Bryan Larsen, The Letter

