November - Week 3

Written 30/11/2025, 03/12/2025

Sketching ideas

I will say, it took me a while to really nail down what I wanted to do this month. Have been feeling mentally and physically pretty under the weather the past few weeks so my motivation was almost nada. I decided to start by practising drawing some female figures (elongating them to evoke B Prabha's style)

Pencil sketches of women with elongated, willowy figures
I did this quickly so that I got more a feel of the form rather than focusing on the details

I then decided to try drawing some hands, am quite happy with these!

Pencil sketches of hands
These were also done pretty quickly, I think this helped me not 'overcorrect'

Then, last Saturday, serendipity occured! I was meeting with a friend of mine and as we walked across Cwmcarn Forest Drive I liked how the light was shining on the leaves, trees, water - it was a beautiful reddish-brown (impressive through the rain). In a spur of the moment in my car I took some photos of her (with her permission), and after messing with some filters I really liked how the colours turned out and thought it evoked the deep colours of Fisherwoman.

Deeply lit photo of a young woman with red hair, she is sat in a car with her face in profile

It did make the figure drawing pointless since this is going to be an upper body only piece but ah well.

Now, knowing what I was going to do I got to some practise drawing her face

I started in my own style

pencil sketch of a young woman in profile
I think this looks nice, though not sure on the resemblance

I then did some in B Prabha's style, trying to emphasise her facial features in a more stylised way.

pencil sketch of a young woman in profile
This almost felt like a caricature of my first drawing...
pencil sketch of a young woman in profile, very stylised only the basic shapes of her hair and face are defined
In the style of Sorrow, I feel like this conveys the serenity quite well

I then did a sketch of the whole space

Pencil sketch of a young woman looking forward with a phone in her lap
A bit rough, but the vibe is there I think?

Now it was time to do some painting!

I really should have done a practise painting for Fisherwoman last time, as doing this really did help more than with pencils how the colours work for it. It also helped me with painting my friend's face (also the colours of the photo).

painted copy of 'Fisherwoman' by B Prabha
I think that I manage to nail the colours (obviously not as detailed though)

Since the face is the main focus, I decided to do a painting of just her face to start with.

Painting of a young woman in profile, her hair is a deep red with dark deep shadows
I think that the shadows really emphasise the red hair.

I then did my practise piece. I was unsure on how to the background, I think that keep the red and orange tones exclusively on her will work better than having some in the background. But I suppose I will see whenever I finish the painting.

Pencil of a young woman looking forward with a phone in her lap
This is quite rough but this is giving me a good idea of what the final piece will be.

How the process is going

I am so behind omg, like just have been feeling rather unmotivated. I feel like I have so much going on outside of this project of mine but I also have gotten this far so I don't want to give up on it now! And I worry next month will be even more hectic!

Regarding this piece, I at least have a solid idea of what to do now. I even have a wooden board to paint on since B Prabha painted on those rather than a canvas, so that will be interesting to try out.

Anything I have learnt

I have learnt that inspiration can come from talking about it with other people (not just the above friend in question, but also my partner who I bounced some ideas off from even if I didn't end up using any of those ideas), art is collaborative after all :)