The heiress (project 3 - part 5)

Over the summer I had already decided I was going to paint (and rework with coloured pencil and crayons) this project. Over the course of a week I made attempt after attempt to start painting using my sketchbook as reference. For the big overview of the zoo I made some simple mockups in Photoshop, using drawings from my sketchbook.

Only something wasn't working. In an attempt to fix the situation, I tried to paint more freely and get to now my character - as well as the right visual atmosphere for this project - better.

I then considered that painting might not be the right way to go. At least at this point in the story. My work over the summer had been raw and adventurous and did not at all fit with the constrained first chapter that I was now working on. I decided to try a different technique instead and made collagraph prints using mounting board (which seems to have a different - more dark - tonal range than a milk carton).

Later I tried adding colour. I added colour by overlaying the collagraphed line work over an unfinished painting, by adding digital colour and eventually by printing this out and drawing over it. This last option was definitely the least successful of all. In the end, the paintings I did in between seemed to work the best. I especially liked the cooler colour scheme I had chosen. This really resulted in a sense of mystery and ambiguity about the exact time and place in which the story unfolds itself. Maybe I wasn't that interested in creating a lifelike historic representation even though The Heiress takes place in the 1920’s.