Layered Portraits

Today I'm going to show you a fun way to make portraits using Niji Splash Inks and Authentic Chinese Watercolors.  I hope you will enjoy the process!  I made two examples so that you can see how varied you can make these portraits.  Here is one of the finished pieces:

Here is what you will need:

*Niji Splash Inks

*Yasutomo and Company's Authentic Chinese Watercolors

*Water for mixing Niji Splash Inks

*An eye dropper for water (used when mixing Niji Splash Inks)

*Paintbrushes

*A pencil

*Watercolor Paper

STEP ONE:  Mix up several colors of Splash Inks - choose colors that you think would be fun for a portrait!  Get out your watercolor paper and brushes, and paint a loose, abstract face onto your paper, eliminating all the details, like so:

Don't worry too much if there are little drips and "mistakes" here and there - this will just add to the charm of the finished piece!

STEP TWO: After the Splash Ink dries, do a pencil sketch on top of the loose portrait you already made, defining the details of the face, like this:

STEP THREE: Now it's time to fill in some details and accent the portrait with the Authentic Chinese Watercolors.  The nice part about using these in conjunction with the Splash Inks is that when you paint on top with the watercolors, the Splash Inks will not bleed or move - this is because they are acrylic inks, so once dry, they can't be reactivated with water.  This makes them a great first layer to your layered portrait!  Here is a shot of what it looks like to paint some watercolor details and accents on top of the Splash Ink layer:

And here is the finished piece:

Here is another example.  This is the first layer done with Splash Inks:

And then comes the pencil layer:

Finally, watercolor is added, and here is the finished piece:

Thanks for creating art with me!  I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. 

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In the interest of full disclosure, I am a current member of the Niji Design Team and was given the Niji Splash Inks and Yasutomo & Company Authentic Chinese Watercolors by Niji/Yasutomo.  As always, I promise to only recommend and use products that I love!