Tag Archives: portrait
Daily… A self portrait
Over the winter I grew a beard. I typically go back and forth between various amounts of facial hair, but this was the first time I fully let it grow out. Last week it all came off, and now my face feels naked!
I needed a bio image for the Hippogriff Cookbook, I felt it was appropriate to use bearded me.
Daily… A portrait in open acrylics
I was incredibly tired so decided to use my painting from class as my daily. I also thought this would be a good opportunity to actually show something from my figure painting class. I feel like I’m making a lot of progress now that I’m painting outside of class, it really makes a difference.
This was my first time doing a portrait in class, typically I’m working full figure and also trying to suggest some sort of environment. Like a lot of artists, I find the head, hands, and feet really difficult. I liked the models face and had a nice position, so I thought I’d try and tackle a portrait. We had about 2 hours for the pose, broken up into 20 min segments. I tried to make sure that within that first 20 mins I had all my proportions and placement figured out.
My teacher is allergic to oil paint (more specifically the smell of linseed oil), so I’m using Golden (brand) open acrylics. They stay wet longer than regular acrylics, but still nowhere near the way oils do. I was getting frustrated at times as the paint was drying too quickly and becoming tacky. I really do prefer oils.
-A self critique-
Things that I feel worked:
General structure/proportion feels good.
Skin tones are working better.
Reflected light on forehead and underside of hat.
A decent likeness of model.
A sense of character.
Problem areas:
Structure of nose is “off”.
Plane change of cheekbone on screen right feels too abrupt.
Mustache/beard has no transition, thus feels more pasted on face.
Something about the neck feels off, like it’s too thin.
18″ x 24″
Oil on canvas board
Portrait of Dave
Daily… Thumbnails
A couple thumbnails for an idea I had for a painting. At this point I’m just trying to figure out general placement and proportions, I’ll do another round of sketches better describing his expression and clothing etc. I had been thinking of going with the portrait versus landscape orientation, but seeing them all next to eachother, I’m less sure. I like the vertical arrangement, but having open space ahead of him is nice. If I stick with my plan, the final piece is going to be 16″ x 20″.
Daily… An experiment in painting skin
I tried using a traditional painting method for skin applied to digital work. The basic idea is to lay down a color like raw umber and then paint your shadows, midtones and eventually hilites on top of that. The warm colors of the raw umber will show through in places, it has a really nice effect. I couldn’t really figure out how to do that digitally. I likely should have had appropriate reference of the general skin tone I wanted to end up at, so I’d have a road map of sorts. Oh well, still learned from the experience.
Something I keep coming back to is the idea that I need to start with an appropriate local color and then go from there. I’ll try that next time and add in the warm accents myself.
