Portrait in Profile

(C) 2017 Dale DiMauro

This is a little study of a portrait which I am certain will become a much larger painting. These days it is common to see people looking at their phone throughout the day with that head bent down posture. Someone told me recently that the average young person looks at their phone over one hundred times a day. That number if accurate, is unbelievable to me.

For sometime I have been thinking about trying to capture that 'phone' posture as it has become universal across cultures. As a composition, I believe the profile perspective as compared to a straight on shot to be the strongest. Not only can you capture the expression of the face honed in on the small screen but the fingers moving rapidly across the phone. In essence, I like the idea of an 'L' shaped composition along one edge of the sheet of watercolor framed against the backdrop.

Before painting the figure I applied a diluted wash of permanent magenta, a light purple color over the entire sheet to reduce the overall whiteness of the paper. I think with the skin tone as such it made the face come forward a bit. I feel the simplicity of the color scheme and brushwork makes the viewer focus on the facial expression.