Jenna's Candle

Jenna, holding a candle aloft looks back over her shoulder. What was that sound she heard? Is someone else stirring in her home? Whatever it is has not alarmed her yet, merely caught her interest.

This is not based on any known character, mine or any other's. Jenna is a name I picked at random so that this lady would not be nameless. She is a light/dark study, and works well enough for that. I couldn't get the dappled effect I wanted with my markers, so did a mixed media markers/watercolors. The mix worked well enough for my first attempt at combining them, although I can see things I would do differently already. I will not do the light-circle around the candle in quite the same way next time; the part that is overlapping the window... I didn't water the blue of the window enough, and what worked great on the wall required a thicker coating of white acrylic to set right inside the window area. You can see the brush strokes clearly there. Also, using such an intense shade of blue as one of the wall colors tended to bleed when I added the shadow tones over it... next time, I'll have to try sealing it first or doing the shadow layer first... something. Ah well, this is what a practice piece is for.

The scan does not treat her as she deserves, and I can't seem to match the balance of colors on the original. (sighs) On the original, the highlights do NOT have such a sharp line to them on places such as the rounded crest of her tail, making it look like a strong sweep of yellow. The yellow is softer and less orange, the gray less blue.

I may try coloring this again on the computer, where I'll at least have a lot more control over how the shades will appear on screen.

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Watercolor and markers over Micron inkwork on watercolor paper.