"The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn..." Tessa Watercolor

Okay hi everyone! So this is an entry for Cassandra Clare's ARC contest for "Clockwork Prince", which I oh-so-desperately want. This is a watercolor of the character Tessa from the Infernal Devices series with her intense and apparently hilarious inquisitive face. The title is from Nat King Cole's song "Nature Boy", and I think we all know how that particular verse relates to the theme.....

I slaved over this for weeks. Seriously. This is it. This is the best I can do in watercolor. :D

This painting is 9x12 inches on 140lb Strathmore Watercolor Paper. I used Reeve's Watercolor Tubes with various multimedia brushes. The background was done wet-on-wet, while the gears were done with a combination of wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry. Her skin and clothing was painted with a combination of wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry as well. Her hair, eyes, lace glovelets and clockwork angel necklace are done dry-on-dry. Overall,  a very tricky, fickle and time-consuming business. But I love watercolor. :D

I wish I could send this in in person, since the picture will never look as nice as the actual thing. I really enjoyed painting this. I learned a lot about foreshortening (the bane of all artists) and how frustratingly fun watercolor is as a medium.

Well, I tried really, really hard and I hope I win the contest! :D

 Good night world!!