Transferring the Image

Decisions. I have little problem making decisions. It was not always so easy. At one point I had trouble deciding what to have for supper. No more. It is a good thing. Every time I pick up a pencil or a brush there are a thousand decisions to be made. As I mentioned last week, there turned out to be one extra square along the width in my grid. I wanted to move the images slightly to the right so I placed my figures one more square to the right. I begin with some phantom drawing. Phantom drawing allows me to put the major shapes in the correct place without locking me into a final position. Phantom because it is light, barely visible. Usually I do not use an eraser. I rely on the contrast of my final marks to outweigh the first so they do disappear. The first marks are geometric, circles, flowing curves, rectangles. Having drawn the head ovals in the appropriate square and in the approximate proportion I left my preliminary sketch behind in favour of the original photograph. It quickly became apparent that the sketch had not been accurate. I became ever more grateful for the extra five inches. Other decisions were made along the way such as using the foliage as a more complete separation from one grouping to the next. And there is always one challenging drawing in every group. Again I was thankful for the extra room as I took a wet rag and erased the whole thing to replace it one square to the left this time…. Watercolour pencil. Love it! There is a lot of green or turquoise in the mural. I had chosen Shiraz as my drawing colour. Complementary. I love complementary colours. This is going to work beautifully!