Colored Pencil Bubble Girls
‘Idea’ 1/23/2019
‘Dreams’ 1/25/2019
‘Inspiration’ 1/29/2019
‘Tentative Thoughts’ 1/10/2020
‘Silent Sewing’ 8/20/2019
‘Known Inevitability’ 1/14/2020
‘Thoughts’ 1/24/2019
‘Wondering in Sleep’ 2/1/2019
‘Healing Thoughts’ 8/28/2019
‘Thrilling Thoughts’ June 2019
‘Expected Shock’ 1/20/2020
‘Free Thoughts’ 3/12/2020
‘Lofty Thoughts’ 11/22/2019
I revisited this in my water color adaptations.
Reimagined Water Color Bubble Girls
Spring 2021
11/22/2021
‘Descending Thoughts’ 2021
My Process
First I draw the girls and their basic surroundings with pencil.
Next, using colored pencils I color her. I generally move from cloths, to skin, to hair, and finally surroundings. Then I add the thought bubbles one at a time working in the moment to balance the color, quantity, placement, and size of the bubbles. The very last step is to add the ‘atmosphere’ or sky, working around the bubbles.
Most of my girls where done in 2019 with a few in 2020 but in 2021 I revisited them as I learned to work in water color.
This is one of the largest pieces I have ever done at 36” x 16” . The measurements where dictated by the art contest I wanted to enter. I also really wanted to use water color instead of my normal colored pencil as I needed to get the piece scanned for the contest and wanted stronger colors. This is what got me to try watercolor.
At this point I could only afford the 3 primary colors- red, blue, yellow.
I learned a lot about mixing colors. Brown was the color I struggled with most. This was my test girl before I started on the big contest piece on the expensive, large sheet of paper.
In ‘Descending Thoughts’ I made a happy accident and forgot to add the bubbles before the background. So I painted them and cut them out of a separate piece of paper and glued them on. I ended up really liking the 3D effect so intentionally did that on this one.
