The impossible pinup

In May 1956 blonde bombshell Diana Dors posed for the paparazzi at the film festival in Cannes.

I love drawing and painting vintage babes and I was drawn to this particular photo because of its challenging angles and details.

It proved a challenge all right. I spent most of my evening sketching, painting with gouache and hating everything about it for a long time. I messed up the face and parts of the body and ended up repainting it twice before I didn’t hate it too much to share on Instagram.

Here’s a little recap of my impossible pinup.

The pencil sketch.

The first layers of gouache. More like a wash of watercolour. I used a flat brush and mostly Winsor & Newton designers’ gouache and Talens Art Creation gouache. I bought a big set of these last ones when I was on holiday in Barcelona last year. They’re really great if you want to try out painting with gouache but don’t want to break the bank.

Then it started t go a bit down hill, especially with the face which I had to erase and repaint twice. Lucky for me, gouache lifts off the paper quite easily plus it’s opaque so you can layer the paint if something doesn’t look right.

This is where I decided to quit. Sometimes you just have to leave it alone and remember that painting has to be fun too 🙂