Rainbow Kate

I’ve been interested in experiencing more with texture and other techniques and materials. I got the idea of painting a portrait of a woman with rainbow coloured hair but I wasn’t all that keen on just using paint.

I’d seen a number of those melted Crayon paintings where the artist lines all the crayons across the top of the canvass and melts them into this chaotic rainbow. I wanted to do something like that but not so cliche as that has become. I decided I would try and mix my portrait idea with this melted crayon technique.

Below is a portrait I did loosely resembling Kate Beckinsale. I chose Kate because of the way her hair falls down in wavy strands. Using clear silicone caulk I outlined the hair strands generally and then filled in the spaces with melted wax. Part of me was so concerned that the melted wax would run out and away from the ‘hair area’ and of course it did but I really liked the effect.

The skin tone was not meant to be perfect and neither was much else in this painting. I wanted the texture and colour to stand out, the rest of the painting was secondary to accomplishing this goal.

I used acrylic paint, both airbrush and paste, paper towels, ink, graphite powder, posca acrylic paint pens, silicone caulk, crayola crayons and a heat gun. This took me approximately 6 hours from the time I prepared the canvas to writing this entry.

I hope you like it.