Watercolor achievements

I'm usually pretty down on my 2-D art skills because my sister, by comparison, is SO amazing, but I still like to doodle and sketch a bit from time to time.

I recently unearthed an unfinished, years-old sketch and went to work on finishing it. I had been inspired by Egyptian art and curves and used no references for the figure, later Googling Egyptian art to draw from for the hair and eye detail. I used a light box to transfer the sketch to ink on sturdier paper. Once that was done, I noticed how far off center the figure was and added a sun to balance it. But I still had a white space on the left to address. I copied some random hieroglyphs, knowing a better artist would do some more research and planning, but I was eager to be done.

before adding water

I used watercolor pencil to line and shade the whole piece and then drew a wet brush over each section to blend and smooth the pencil colors. I learned too late that card stock is not sturdy enough for such an endeavor, so I pressed it as well as I could between my roommates' stack of medical textbooks. I am very pleased with the final results and having trusted my gut in using "maroon" instead of "brown" for the skin and "peach" instead of "yellow" for the background.

I'm headed to the store this evening to choose a mat for a frame I already have and will update to add a picture of the final product.