Tanja Gant, Jade, colored pencil, 28 x 16.
On the last day of her first colored-pencil workshop, artist Tanja Gant asked the model if she’d be willing to pose for a few photos. The model agreed, so Gant, sans camera, relied on her iPhone for the spontaneous photo session. As the two talked, Gant learned that the woman, who is from India, often wears traditional saris and dupattas, or shawls. “The workshop host had kimonos on hand, and I thought it would be interesting to fashion one as a headscarf to represent the Japanese and Indian cultures in a unique way,” the Texas artist reveals. The result is the award-winning JADE: an arresting colored-pencil portrait awash with theatrical lighting and rich texture.
As in most of her photo-realistic portrait and figure drawings, Gant relied on a limited palette to achieve the desired lighting and color—two areas that really capture her attention. “Some artists like to use 50 different colors; I like to use as few as possible,” she notes. “It’s all about selecting the right colors and using them in the correct order. To simplify that process, I find that it’s better for me to choose five or six colors that range from the lightest to darkest shade. I work slowly and deliberately, paying careful attention to application. If I make a mistake, I can only erase so much.” Interestingly, the rendered colors in JADE don’t exactly match the reference photo. “I only adjusted the shadows using Photoshop, so I tweaked the colors in my mind, which added a fun challenge,” the artist says. “I interpret with my eyes and my hands.”
Gant, a Bosnia native, found her passion for pencil and portraits at a young age. Since becoming a full-time artist just over a decade ago, her work has been recognized in numerous regional, national, and international competitions.
Find Gant’s work at www.tanjagant.com. —Beth Williams
This story appeared in the December 2021/January 2022 issue of Southwest Art magazine.