Mona Sat was painted in June 2019 in acrylic on to a pencil drawing and then coloured marker pens. Image is 1030 by 1200 and displayed reduced (50%).
I wanted to paint someone known, from a photograph, where her leg is prominent, but combine it with a kind of Mona Lisa approach, although the Mona Lisa effect was not pursued beyond reducing the smile. The photograph had a woman among friends sat on concrete with a viewpoint from below. I adjusted the leg and made the viewpoint further above, as more in keeping with the Mona Lisa and how I portrayed her head. This took much pencil drawing and rubbing out. After this came marker pens to fix the drawing, and then a 'negative colours' underpainting (except the rivers!) - see below. The effect was to unify the whole with the first 'positive colours' coats, but later so many coats of paint overwhelm almost all of the underpainting. The breasts needed adjusting, the smile was made less strong, and everything was refined with an extra road added. Later I added more shading, because the figure had become too flat with refinement.
