Watercolor Portraits and Mixed Media - Lesson with Guest Artist Tonja Sell 

Guest Artist Tonja Sell
Untraditional watercolor portrait with added pastel touches
Tonja is a gifted artist who can draw or paint anything. She also makes pots, blows glass and works in pastels, oil, watercolor and just about all media.
Tonja will demonstrate one of her unique techniques that she uses when painting a portrait in watercolor. She will start with demonstrating drawing the shapes of the face and then paint several features such as lips and eyes. She then makes a hot glue mask to fit over the portrait. She draws her portrait with a Derwent Inktense black watercolor pencil. This pencil activates when she wets it and becomes stable when it dries.
Tonja starts painting large shapes of intense color and activates the pencil drawing. She then places the hot glue mask over the wet paper. She adds more color and makes sure the color is wet under the mask. Allow this to dry
Tonja removed the mask and starts to add dark colors. . Tonja works dark to light which is different from most watercolor artists. She continues to add skin tones and shapes the face.
The special techniques continue to be shared and Tonja ends up with a beautiful, yet untraditional portrait. She adds final touches with powdered pastels and pastel pencils.
Check out Tonja’s website at www.doartworx.com Tonja teaches classes and leads International trips. She has studied fine art and is represented by galleries across the country.
She has a fifty-two session self-paced online art instruction course titled “Merging Watercolor and pastel”.
Materials List
Saran Wrap
Gauze
Hot Glue Gun
Wax Paper
Pan Pastels
300# Arches Hot Press Paper
Pastel Pencils
Magic Eraser
Stencils
InkTense
HB Pencil
Mister