Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Portrait Demonstration


I've been working on a portrait for an instructional video.  This time-lapse will include narration of my thought process as I'm painting the portrait.  Here are a few steps along the way.


Some careful measurements at the beginning are essential for me.  (Well begun is half done.)




After completing the drawing, I begin with my darkest dark.  This helps me to compare and judge other values against it.




I start blocking in the larger masses, sometimes with a paper towel.




Now it's a matter of adjustments and refinements (and a lot of concentrated effort) to achieve a likeness.




I often use my palette knife to remove areas that need correction.  (In this case I had the corner of the mouth too high.)




The finished painting demo.


"Portrait of Tiana"   14" x 11"   Oil

4 comments:

  1. Will you let us know when/where the video is available? Looks like your Open Box M is set up similarly to mine, with pencilled notations about what size panel fits at the left pin. I put in a gray painted glass palette and yours looks similar.

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    1. Steve - Not sure yet when the video will be available - probably in a few weeks. It will be a time-lapse like the others, only longer and with narration. I'll probably put it on YouTube, but I'll let my videographer son figure that out. I guess great minds think alike on setting up an Open Box M!

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  2. Hi James, I love your work. I was wondering abut the color you are using to draw and mass in the shadow pattern. Are you using yellow ochre? if so why?

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    1. Thank you, Connie! Yes, it's yellow ochre. I use it not so much for the color but to keep my drawing light. I used to use burnt sienna or gray and found that sometimes my drawing got too dark and heavy and then that affected the freshness of the colors I painted over the drawing.

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