Marilyn Monroe Sitting on a Fountain

Steve featured this one twice on his Closet Collection livestreams, and it comes with a great backstory.

It started as a do-over. Steve's first try at this same pose was, in his words, a miserable failure, so he abandoned it. On the March 4, 2021 livestream he showed this second try, done in watercolor and colored pencil on heavy Fabriano 300 lb paper, and said he thought he could polish it in a couple of days. He paints pieces like this between Nexus pages to get a break from the intensity.

On March 18, 2021 it was still in progress, and Steve talked through his technique. Watercolor goes down first, then colored pencil to bring out the highlights, darks and form. Colored pencil is mostly wax, so he says it's like painting with a colored candle. After enough layers it stops sticking, so he grinds back down to the paper with a Pink Pearl or kneaded eraser and starts fresh.

He finished it on March 31, 2021. The original reference photo is on the back, right under his signature.

• Size: 15x20 inches
• Medium: Watercolor and Prismacolor
• Paper: Fabriano 300 lb watercolor paper
• Signed and dated Mar. 31, 2021 on the back, with the reference photo

Convention Portfolio C- XL COMIC ART

RDO-CCD4