Color Theme Portraits
I had been doing watercolor flowers — I had this obsession to fill an entire folder with watercolor flower paintings, so that was all I was doing.
After filling my folder, I wanted to try a different subject. I didn't want to just do flowers and stick with watercolors, and to be honest I still struggle with watercolors. So I decided to do portraits.
Simply doing portraits felt like it would get boring, and I didn't want to repeat what I did with watercolors — being stubborn and sticking with just one medium. So I decided to make it a project, and eventually settled on a color themed portrait series. The idea was to explore different mediums and techniques and try out styles that seemed interesting, with one rule — each piece would have a dominant color theme.
The first one I did was the pink portrait. I wanted to keep things simple to start — a pencil sketch with a colored background, mainly inspired by manga and comic illustrations where a black and white sketch sits on a bright colored background. When searching for a reference on Pinterest to further solidify the look I had in mind, I found the perfect one [image]. In the end though I felt the face came out too white for my taste and I wasn't entirely happy with it.
The second one was the grey portrait. Taking note of what I learned with the pink one, I decided to add some color to the face and thought watercolors would give it a soft touch. I wanted to repeat the same format — sketch with a colored background — but this time with color on the face.
The sketch was kept intentionally, inspired by artworks that use a pencil sketch as an underpainting, similar to line and wash (I didn't know it was called line and wash at the time — I thought that term only applied to pen sketches). Because of the pencil sketch and being a bit cautious since watercolors can easily be overdone, I tried not to overwork it. The sketch is mostly covered and the grey background gives it a moody quality. This is one of my favorite pieces.
I tried turning this into a shirt design — inspired by a design I saw on Etsy, this is what it looks like.
The next one was the blue portrait. I decided to try gouache, a medium I wasn't really familiar with. To keep things simple and just get a feel for it, I worked with only one color — blue. I really love how this turned out.
Looking at the hair I thought it would be perfect to add some text, so I played around with it in Procreate and wrote it freehand without using any fonts.
For yellow, I used alcohol markers, a medium I had tried before but never liked. I didn't like how it turned out — the markers felt dry and the reference I used had a face mostly in shadows, which was tricky to work with. I went over the piece with oil pastels, using watercolor paper.
For a second attempt I switched to cardstock and decided, like with the gouache, to stick to just one color. This felt much better — the dry markers actually produced an interesting texture on the background.
For the black portrait I didn't have a specific medium in mind, only a clear visual goal — I wanted something like those paintings where the face is starkly white and everything else is dark.
In the first attempt I used pens and oil pastels, trying to make it work, but I couldn't get the face right and was not happy with it.
That's when I found Indian ink at a second hand art store called Make & Mend — something I had been wanting to try for a while. It felt like a treasure hunt, the kind I wish there was more of.
So I did a second attempt using Indian ink. I had to be careful since, like watercolors, you can't remove black once it's down. I used white acrylics to lighten certain areas and went over some parts with pen for texture and to play around. I feel a bit regretful about the face — the pen marks feel overdone there. The face is still not quite where I want it, but it's better than the first attempt.
For white, I had trouble deciding how to approach it. Searching Pinterest for ideas I came across a particular style — a woman surrounded by flowers, with a contrast between a smooth face and more detailed inked florals. That style felt just right. Instead of leaving the face white and black, I colored it with oil pastels to make it pop — a medium I had been using a lot recently and really enjoying. This piece somehow turned into a sad expression, but I really liked how it came out.
For green, I wanted to make a leaf background. Searching for inspiration I came across a technique using real leaves as printing stamps [show example], but at the time I made this it was winter and I couldn't find usable leaves, so I switched strategies and used paint strokes instead.
I decided to try acrylics for this piece since the leaves were going to be painted with acrylics anyway. Since the main focus was the portrait, not much of the background is visible in the end.
For orange, I had been interested in printmaking for a while and wanted to try it, and the reference I found just felt right for this theme. The print block was small, but that actually pushed me to try things I wouldn't have otherwise considered. I love the texture printmaking gives.
I painted the background orange using a roller — I really liked the way it glides across the paper. I then printed twice using the lino block.
The first print used just the face shape without any features, in black acrylics, to establish the dark areas. For the second print I carved out the areas that would stay black and used white acrylic.
I used tissue paper to paint the hair and cardboard pieces to print the neck, shoulders and dress. I added a choker to cover the visual disconnect between the lino print and the cardboard print. This was a fun piece.
One of my finds from Make & Mend was charcoal that came with brown, black and white sticks. I had initially thought of using charcoal for the black portrait, but those brown sticks inspired me to make the brown portrait instead. I also had a piece of cardboard from the back of a finished mixed media pad and used that as the surface, which fulfilled something on my to do list — making a drawing on toned paper.
Paper cutting had always fascinated me and I really wanted to try it someday, so red was decided to be a papercut portrait. I found some inspiration on Pinterest to help me figure out how I wanted to approach it.
I decided to work with what I already had — textured red paper for the background so the face would stand out, brown packaging paper for the shadows, and a decorative semi transparent paper that felt like a perfect representation of sunglasses.
This portrait forced me to simplify details, which was actually a good exercise since I tend to try to be realistic even though realism isn't really my goal.
Purple was the long planned one. I knew what I wanted to do with this from early on and saved it for last. I had bought a diamond art kit and had leftover diamond pieces. Looking at them I knew I wanted to incorporate them into an artwork — not as the whole piece, but as decorative elements. Purple felt associated with royalty and luxury, which aligned with that decorative impulse, so the two ideas came together naturally.
I had initially planned to use the diamond pieces in the background but it didn't feel right, so they ended up on the neckline of the kurta instead. For the background I wanted purple with a gold design — I didn't have gold paint but I had gold metallic oil pastels, which actually worked better since they added gold without overpowering the face.
For the earrings I used gold paper I had on hand and decorated them with enamel accent, another find from Make & Mend store. The necklace was the last puzzle — painting it would have felt disjointed next to the diamond pieces, and then I remembered some rakhi I had made and had taken out for a separate experiment. I got the idea to make small holes and tie the rakhi through them, like those artworks where an actual object is incorporated into the piece.
It was strange how all the elements just happened to be there. Without the second hand store I wouldn't have the enamel accent. Without the diamond art kit I wouldn't have had the idea. Without the red portrait I wouldn't have remembered the gold paper. Without buying the metallic oil pastels I wouldn't have had the gold background. And without taking out the rakhi to experiment with turmeric sun printing I wouldn't have thought to use it as a necklace. Everything just came together. The face didn't turn out quite right, but the process was genuinely fun.
And that was my portrait series. I loved making these and discovering new things along the way. Not everything worked out perfectly, but it was worth it.
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