Almost Self-Portrait

There are so many free lessons online that it sometimes becomes a bit overwhelming.
Don’t know about you, but I want to do them all!! However, I have narrowed things down to certain people, style, or project that I can have fun and maybe learn a thing or two as well.

This is a lesson that was offered free from artist Christa Forrest in the 9 day free event called Taster : A Year of Magic & Fairy Tales. This event ends October 14. I plan on doing at least two more by then.

I found an image that sort of looked like me and used it in this project.

It is mixed media: watercolor, acrylic ink, neocolor crayons, pencil and markers.

What I love about mixed media is that surprises happen. Some things like watercolor or acrylic inks just do their own thing. Almost anything you don’t like can be fixed. I did the background three times. You can see some pencil lines and overspray in the close-up. It is also a loose style so it is beginner friendly!

It was a lot of fun and very relaxing. Thanks for looking!

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Beautiful work, I love your color choices.

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Thank you! The lesson was to use unconventional colors for skin tone. I used 12 different colors of neocolor crayons, 4 acrylic inks, and 5 watercolors.

I am going to do greens on the next one. Maybe some metallics…

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This looks amazing! You did such a beautiful job. I visited that taster event last week when you posted it and was frantically watching as many videos as I could!

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It’s a lot of videos and information. I generally just do the ones I connect with. I am not really into fantasy art so I tend to only find two or three to do.

I watched the teacup fairy one because I think it would be cute for the littlest niece (2 years old).

I think for freebies, if you learn at least one thing or are inspired by a particular artist, they usually have videos on their own that you can watch later.

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Of the ones I watched, I learned some new techniques from “Recall the Magic Within” with Marie-Laure Delage-Carlson, “Cat and Owl” with Eulalia Mejia, Tamara Laporte’s dragon class, and I always love Shawn Petite’s classes (she’s such a master at layering).

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Your portrait is amazing!
I love it.

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Oh I love this Linda! It absolutely looks like you…it’s stunning!! :star_struck:

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This is stunning. The colors, the angle of your face and just how it fills the space, the way the background seems to reflect onto the skin.

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This is so beautiful and peaceful. Seriously the colors and textures are eye candy.

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The entire piece flows together so well and I love the freedom of it.