Portrait of Dennis and Liam con't

 

Here's what happened today. This looks much more like Dennis, having shortened his jaw. The poka dots are from the photo but I kind of like them... hmmm...

Values are looking good.

Liam's face was also too long.  Checking against my reference I could see how the nose and mouth needed to be moved up.

Still not there, but moving in the right direction.

Parting shot until next time.

Classes with Gabriel Lipper

You know how sometimes you just can't figure out what's keeping you from getting where you want to go, doing what you think you want to do? I have a have a dozen, maybe more, paintings started and sitting around in my studio staring at me. I put them on the easel and look at them and put them back where they were. What have I been waiting for?
Evidently this is what I was waiting for: classes with Gabriel Lipper. I've been spending too much time alone with only my inner critic to guide me and even though I've been aware of this guy for a few years I did not investigate if he taught classes until recently. A week after I inquired a new session started with emphasis on portraits and there was room for me!

Gabriel's studio is a big barn of a place he shares with a couple other artists and this is where he teaches classes on Friday Mornings from 9-12. It's messy and full of works in process and finished which he readily talks about if it pertains to the issue at hand. Gabe is gabby and full of life and experience and knowledge, and for the first time ever in a painting class I feel like I'm learning something every moment I'm there. The other students are a good mix - some older, some younger, some more advanced than me, some not. It's great!

I have never been able to paint alla prima (all at once). My colors just got muddy and the brush strokes lost. In this class we are not finishing a painting all in one session but the approach is as if we were. For the first time I am experiencing the truth that color can be almost anything if it is the right value, and that changes in colors of the same value but different temperatures can define a change in plane.  This is especially important in painting faces.

But enough bloggety words - you came for the pictures!
Here's my reference photo of Dennis reading to our grandson:

 

The first issue at hand was to change the composition so that Dennis' head was not popping off the top of the  frame. I chose a canvas that was a taller proportion so there would be more room at the top. This brought his face down where the top third and left third of the canvas meet - a good spot for the focal point. Adding more dark also adds to the feeling of the two of them in their own private pool of light, which is why I snapped the photo in the first place.  

This is a complicated  picture and I wanted to get on with the painting rather than spend two days trying to freehand the sketch, so I traced the general "map" of the photo :

Then I photographed the sketch and reduced it to a 5 x 7 image so I could use it in the little image projector I have.  (Last Thursday morning I woke up at 5:50 am and realized that if I didn't get up and project this image while it was still dark I would not have my canvas ready to paint for  Friday morning's class. So up I got! That's another great thing about taking a class.)  After projecting the basics it was easier to do the detailed drawing that would be the foundation for the painting. Even so it took me most of the day to do this:

In class on Friday I first fixed the drawing with spray on fixative and then gave the whole canvas a thin coat of blue gray acrylic for a quick drying tone. Knowing that most of my colors would be warm it seemed like a cool undertone that would show through here and there might add some "snap". I made it as dark as I could and still see the drawing.

As soon as the acrylic was was dry I started painting and this is how far I got in class last Friday. Gabe was encouraging me to find the planes in the face and define them with changes in value and temperature without trying to match the subject's actual color. This was another photo reference I took of Dennis that gave me more information than the first photo with the deep shadows:

    

When I got home I also took a B&W to see if the values really were working. They are...sort of.  and then I painted some more:

After lunch and a half hour nap I went back to it.

Needed another reference for the hand. Good thing I live with my model! The cat is playing Liam's role.

...and then I was pooped!! The plaid shirt really wore me out.
This doesn't look much like Liam, and Dennis sort of looks like our friend Bjorn,  but I have confidence that I'll find them eventually.

I'll give you an update soon. Since I'm doing this for class I will have to follow thorough on it and will share it with you.  An THEN I'll go back to the other paintings with new eyes and you can see how I finish those as well.

Sarah

Sarah was expecting her first baby to arrive in a week when I took this photo of her in her new hat at my daughter's house. I thought it was interesting that after I got home I felt more compelled than usual to print out the photo and get going.  I enjoyed communing with Sarah for most of a whole day as I started the painting.  The next morning I thought about her and what I wanted to do with the painting throughout my yoga and meditation. Just as I finished my practice my daughter called to say that Sarah's baby had arrived and all was well! No wonder I was so intent on her!

So- I think I will just run these photos without much comment, starting with the reference photo. Hope you enjoy the process. I enjoy your comments.

 Number 6 of six quick shots. I knew this was the one I was looking for.

 Darkened in Photoshop to see the shadows better.

This is a 16 by 20 canvas (...I think)

 Day one finished the under-painting establishing the values.

Because it's obviously winter, I wanted the light to be cool. 

This meant the shadows needed to be warm and it all felt a bit counter-intuitive at first.

 Color change is from shooting in daylight and then under lights.

 End second day.

 

Back to daylight.

End of third session.
I kept the file size on these photos fairly big so you can click on them and then zoom in to see the brushwork

 

OK- Here's a really big correction. Look at the eyes. See in the picture above how the eye on the right is higher and closer to the nose than it is in the picture on the right? This is a mistake I make again and again and it makes faces really wonky. At least now I know to be on the watch for it.

 

 More paint on the surface, leaving the brush stokes. More contrast and sharp edges where the hat is in shadow against her cheek. 

Hopefully this all brings focus to her face rather than the hat where I kept the edges soft. That hat is tough competition!   End of 4th session.

Just a little time today but more detail and highlights in the features. I like the way her eyes are sparkling now: A Mama-to-Be - "glowing".

Wish me luck as I continue.

See you in Portland this weekend!

I will be at the
Da Vinci Art Fair
with cards, prints and painted terra cotta cups. Great Gifts!

Sales support local artists
and the arts programs at da Vinci Arts Middle School.

December 4th & 5th
Saturday 10-6 pm & Sunday 10-4 pm

2508 NE Everett Street, Portland Oregon map

Brothers 3

My wonderous nine month old grandson arrived here on the 26th to stay while his parents are in Japan. Skype is a wonderous thing even when the connection falters. We will return him to Portland on the 3rd, have a nice reunion and come home on the sixth.  THEN I will paint again.

Until then here's what happened on the painting of the brothers.

I started defining the background with some tree branches and leaves, lightening the area behind the taller boy's head and breaking up the big dark space on the left. I also lightened the tops of the rocks to keep that lighter diagonal moving.

Here's the squinty eye take on how the values are working out according to my plan which is still visisble in the background.

Had to spend some time on these beautiful faces before I ended this session. I think I've caught the younger- now if I can just keep my brushes OFF, except for his hair which needs work.

At the end of this session I realize than in my desire for a light diagonal I have made the water look like milk.  Ah, three steps foward, two steps back.  And so it goes.

The next day I take the dog and return to Beaver Creek, where this idylic scene began. The water does not look like milk; it is a mirror.

With my new reference photos I rework the water. It's better and I look forward to retrning to this painting.

Happy Halloween!I'll be back in November.

Brothers 2

One of the things that happens when I take photos of a painting's progress is that I don't always have the  camera on the same setting. If I use the auto I get much cooler colors than if I shoot with manual settings. So don't think the color is swinging wildy, it's probably just the camera. 
Here's where we left off:

Wow! There's the color shift I was talking about!  Here I'm thinking about the size and angle of the bow and arrow and not liking that they are parallel to each other.

Let's indulge in slightly smaller brushes ,change the angle of the arrow and work on the boys...

The skin tones are a challange. I have a tendancy to add too much white and I'm thinking at the end I will probably add an orche glaze to warm things up a bit.  It IS summer, after all.  the faces are starting resemble

their owners.

 A little more definition in the rocks. I've put in about 4hrs...we'll call it good for the day.

Brothers

The Roses were a good warm-up; this week I'm on to the painting for my niece. I'm doing this from a photo which I will not post in it's original form because it was taken about 8 yrs ago and one of my grand-nephews is not so happy about anyone seeing this image of him naked!!! ( He's threatened to sue if I do the painting, but I'll take my chances.)
 The first thing was to change the color photo to a high contrast black and white to get better see the big shapes.

Next I added on to the left side to make a better composition. A general guide is to have the center of interest be at the junction of the painting's thirds. I've drawn lines here so you can see that the lines cross near the boy's faces. In the original shot their faces were close to center. The re-do has more drama, don't you think?  The red spots were an idea about having them gathering fruit or something, but I abandoned that idea for metaphor about brothers which came a little later.

This brought me to the point of a rough in on the 24" x 24" canvas. I projected the image and made a quick charcoal sketch of the main elements.  (There is lots of controversy about weather it is "OK" to do this, which I don't care much about. I think the main issue is that people use images that are taken by others, project them as is and then put paint on it. The composition, color and subject were all done by someone else so the result is hardly "original". Not the case here so I am guilt-free.)
I sprayed the sketch with fixative and let it dry overnight, then I did a quick color wash with ochre acrylic.

Then...I chickened out and painted the October Roses.

A few days later I came back to the Brothers and did another color blocking with acrylic. I chose the violets and blues because I thought they would give and interesting under tone to the greens, and yellows and pinks I planned to use. By this time I was hot to get going and the thin acrylic allowed me to do that because it dries so fast. If I'd used oils, even thinned with turp, I would have had to wait a day rather than an hour. Oils can go over thin acrylic, but acrylic over oils will peel off.

Here's how it went:

I'm including my reference photos in these shots so you can see if I'm sticking to the plan as I go along. Having them on the wall behind the easel helped me just look at the the shapes and values, not any detail.



These are the brushes I'm using. No need for any details at this stage! The sketchy marks are the bow the smaller boy will carry and the arrow his brother is holding. The angle of the arrow should stop the eye from following the arm right our of the picture.
Do you get the metaphor?

A check with this black and white at the end of the day shows me I'm losing the strong light diagonal, from bottom left to upper right. I'll have to keep an eye on that as I proceed.