'Brotherly Love'

This is a piece that I worked on a fair bit this week. I started off with what I thought would be a simple idea and it then turned into something a lot more involved. The initial idea came from the prompt for next week's Mixed Media Monday. The prompt is 'layers'. So I came up with an idea that saw me use different techniques and some collage. I sketched a simple out line from a photograph of my two boys. Then I shaded it and coloured it with coloured pencil. I cut it out and stuck it onto watercolour paper. Then painted the back ground in arcylic paint. I also painted the leaves then cut them out and stuck them on. When I finished I realised that the pencil was just too faint against the paint so I took a chance and painted over the drawing with acrylic so it really is quite a mixture of materials. I quite like the end result considering it's my first real attempt at painting portraits in acrylic and also using mixed media in this way. I have put a photo up of the painting before I painted over the drawing and after so that you can see the difference. I'm looking forward to submitting this to Mixed Media Monday next week, it's not often I'm this organised!