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 Meet Roman
In a Watercolor portrait 8-1/4" x 10-1/8" by Linda Young
This is the finished portrait of Roman, a grandchild of a client of mine who will be giving this as a present this Christmas to her son and daughter-inlaw.  When I was painting him I saw the youthful innocence in Roman's eyes; and yet the intense curiosity in his beautiful gray blue eyes really stood out and made impression on me.  His eyes were so important to me to paint as correctly as I possibly could; his gaze was capitvating. 

I originally made the background a medium blue; but his eye's and hair got lost and didn't stand out; in fact it was quite boring.  I slept on it overnight and this morning when I awoke to the painting by my bed, it was apparent to me what was needed:  depth and texture.  The colors in the background chosen were combinations of (or straight) mixes of cobalt, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, sap green and quinacridone red.  There are many layers of glazing to the background and most was done wet into wet.  

I'm happy with the way Roman turned out; I hope you'll like it too and have appreciated the steps to creating this painting from start to finish.  I feel like I know Roman personally without ever having met this little man.  Maybe one day, I'll get to see him face to face.

Linda Young watercolors website
Daily Painters of Pennsylvania blogspot